Bluebells
by inkstainedfingers97
Summary: Lisbon can't sleep. It's only partially Jane's fault.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is for Arcasia, to whom I promised a one shot about a thousand years ago. It turned out not to be a one shot, but for the sake of argument, could you find it in yourselves to just pretend it's a one shot for now so I don't have to feel guilty if I don't update it in a while? RL is kicking my butt these days and I'm still cranking away at Beyond Measure and a couple other little things, so I'm not sure when I will get back to it. But I think it reads ok as a one shot, so I hope you enjoy it as it stands for the moment.

Spoilers: Is that still a thing? I mean, the show has been over a while now... In any case, this is set several years post 7x13, so pretty much everything is fair game.

Rating: Strong T, for sexual situations. There is an 'm-ish' section, which I have marked with 'mmm' at the break.

xxx

Lisbon woke feeling as though she were being suffocated.

Also, as hot as though she were lying in a bed of lit coals.

She assessed her situation. She was trapped under what felt like a thousand blankets, unable to move. This was less because of the blankets themselves and more because of the restraints placed upon her by her current bed companions. Her husband had wrapped himself around her like a boa constrictor, spooned up behind her. Her daughter was sprawled out beside her, taking up more than her fair share of the bed and sweating slightly in her sleep. It was a miracle she hadn't shoved her little brother, next to her, off the edge—Clara was a kicker. Lisbon's arm was stretched out across Clara to rest protectively over Henry's round little belly, assuring herself in her sleep that her two year old wouldn't be cast overboard by his domineering big sister while the family slept.

Lisbon had tried to tell Jane that they really shouldn't let Clara sleep in the bed with them. She had her own bed, after all, and they should be encouraging her to be more independent, now that she was five. But it was no use. At the slightest plea from his little girl, Jane folded like a cheap card table. It wasn't his fault, he insisted to Lisbon. He was helpless to resist females with curly dark hair and green eyes.

Lisbon snorted at this and retorted that he'd resisted her just fine all those years they'd worked together and she was trying to get him to do something he didn't want to do. He was just a sucker when it came to younger women.

Of course, it was no good trying to get Henry to stay in his bed once Clara had left hers. Though he was generally a docile sleeper, he had an uncanny ability to sense when his sister had made a break down the hall to their parents' room. He would wait a few minutes, usually the length of time it took Lisbon to try (and fail) to convince Clara to return to her own bed. Once he could hear the murmured negotiations were complete (Lisbon almost always lost), Henry would get up and appear at his parents' bedside. It had gotten to the point that any time Clara climbed into bed with Jane and her, Lisbon knew it was only a matter of time before Henry turned up as well. Where Clara went, Henry followed.

Henry didn't bother with negotiations. He simply appeared at the side of the bed and hit Lisbon with imploring blue eyes. Knowing it would be grossly unjust if she refused the younger what she had granted the elder, Lisbon inevitably caved immediately and lifted him into the bed herself.

The result being that at least five times a week, she was so cramped in her own bed that she could barely twitch a finger, let alone sleep soundly through the night.

Something had to give.

Lisbon tried to shift slightly to free herself, but failed. She couldn't move her legs. She looked down at the end of the bed. The dog was lying on her feet. She turned her head and craned her neck to look at Jane, next to her. The cat was practically sleeping on top of his head, curled up on his pillow directly above the mass of his disheveled blond hair.

Lisbon huffed in exasperation. How the hell could he sleep like that?

She knew the answer to this, of course. For him, having the kids in bed with them wasn't an unwelcome intrusion, but a tangible reassurance that they were safe and well. Jane, the man who had slept on his couch, in isolated hotel rooms, and on a narrow cot in the attic for ten years, never slept more peacefully than when he had his entire family safely within arm's reach.

That was all very moving and poetic and all, but she, Lisbon, had more mundane considerations to worry about when it came to a good night's sleep. Such as temperatures lower than sweltering and room to turn over in her own bed.

She tried to at least wriggle free of some of the blankets, but her husband snuffled in her ear and tightened his grip on her. There was only one thing for it.

She drew her arm back and elbowed Jane in the ribs.

He didn't wake. Instead, he sighed in his sleep and turned onto his back, pulling her closer to him so she was half on top of him. Not exactly what she'd had in mind. She lay there for a moment with her head propped on his chest, studying his handsome face in the moonlight. His jaw was slack with sleep, the lines around his eyes and mouth carved in more deeply than they had been a few years ago. God, he was beautiful. He sighed in his sleep again and pulled her even more tightly to him, his hand burying itself in her hair. He turned his head in his sleep so his mouth rested against her forehead.

The sensation was not unpleasant, but seriously, how could he even breathe like that?

Okay. She could deal with this. She would pretend they were newlyweds again, when Jane had been seemingly unable to go five minutes without touching her, asleep or awake. He'd always been particularly clingy in sleep, and that hadn't faded with time. She would just imagine the reason she was boiling hot was because they'd just finished an especially enthusiastic round of lovemaking and—

Clara kicked out and caught her in the back of the leg.

Lisbon huffed in exasperation. That was it. She had to get out of this bed. "Jane," she hissed.

"Mm," he murmured, sliding his hand down her back and pulling her still closer.

She shoved him away. "Jane, wake up."

He made a noise of protest and attempted to bury his face in her neck. "But this is my happy place."

She elbowed him harder this time. He opened his eyes. "Wha…? What 's it?" he slurred, blinking.

"Let me up," she ordered.

"Why?"

"Because I'm so hot I might die," she said irritably.

His eyes darkened. "I think I might be able to help you out with that."

"Yes, you can," she agreed. "Move over."

Instead of moving over, he leaned over and stole a kiss.

"I'm serious, Jane," she said, giving up on his assistance and attempting to climb over him.

He caught her hips and stayed her progress. "If you wanted to be on top, all you had to do was say so," he murmured, leaning up to catch her mouth with his.

"Jane!" she protested against his mouth. "The kids are right there."

"We'll be quiet," he insisted. "They'll never know."

She kissed him back. "Not happening."

He tightened his grip on her hips. "I have ways of persuading you, you know."

"Not on this," she said firmly. "Let me go."

"Make me," he challenged her, flopping back onto the pillow and attempting to pull her with him.

His movement woke the cat, who batted his hair with one paw in protest.

Jane turned his head. "What the—"

The cat hissed and swiped a paw in his direction, catching Jane on the temple with one outstretched claw. "Ow!" Jane flinched and released Lisbon from his grip. The dog woke and let out a low whine. Clara whimpered in her sleep. Jane turned to her, concerned, and the dog got up and flung himself on Jane's feet this time.

Lisbon made her escape.

Xxx

Lisbon stood over the kitchen sink and pressed a cool glass of water to her neck. Ah. That was better. She moved it to her chest and closed her eyes, savoring the sensation of the cool glass against her skin.

Once her body temperature had been reduced to below boiling point, she took her glass and wandered over to the front window. Jane had insisted on expanding it into a huge picture window during the remodel. Though she'd argued at the time it was an unnecessary expense, she had to admit the final product afforded a beautiful view out over their little pond. She took a sip of her water and gazed out over the pond, the moonlight glimmering on the surface, cutting through the dark silhouettes of the trees beyond.

A pair of warm arms encircled her from behind, drawing her close. "Hey," Jane murmured, squeezing her tightly. He bent his head and nuzzled her neck.

She placed her free hand on his forearm and leaned back into him, enjoying the solid familiarity of his chest pressed against her back. "Hey, yourself."

"Couldn't sleep?" he said, pressing a kiss to her hair.

She shook her head. "I was cooking like a lobster in there."

"Mm," he murmured, kissing the side of her neck.

She rubbed her thumb over his bare forearm. "Clara okay?"

"Yeah. She didn't wake up, just kicked me a couple more times."

Lisbon sighed. "I'm worried about her. This whole wanting to sleep with us thing—it's not like her."

"It's just a phase, Teresa. It's perfectly normal for kids to go through periods like this where they want extra reassurance."

"Mm," Lisbon said, not convinced.

He kissed her shoulder. "I moved Henry to the middle, though. I was afraid she might push him off the edge."

"Oh, good," Lisbon said, relieved. "I was worried about that, too."

"There's one good thing about having extra bodies in the bed," he remarked.

She tilted her head to the side. "What's that?"

He fingered the thin strap of the tank top she was wearing. "It encourages you to wear less clothing to bed."

She sighed. "Fat lot of good that is doing us." Time to themselves was in short supply these days.

"Anytime I get to hold you and touch your bare skin is good for me," he insisted, drawing his fingers past the hem of her cotton shorts and sliding his hand over the skin of her bare thigh.

"Smooth talker," she said affectionately.

He bent his head and kissed her neck again. "I meant it."

She turned and kissed him on the nose. "I know." She looked into his eyes with warmth, then frowned. She reached up to touch his temple. "You're bleeding."

He brought his own fingers to his face. "Must be where the cat got me."

"C'mon. I'll fix you up." She took him by the hand and led him to the kitchen. She found a butterfly bandage in one of the drawers, along with a tube of Neosporin. She perched on the kitchen counter and dabbed his temple with the ointment, then applied the bandage.

Jane, standing between her legs, leaned into her, his eyes closed. "Still taking care of me, I see," he murmured.

"In sickness and in health," she agreed, tossing the wrapper for the bandage in the garbage.

He pulled her closer to the edge of the counter and gave her a sloppy kiss. "Want to have sex on the couch?" he said hopefully.

Her blood heated, this time from the inside out. She glanced towards the bedroom, where her children were sleeping, peacefully unaware of the debauchery their parents were contemplating. "Do you think we can manage it?"

"It's worth a shot," he said, running his hands up and down her bare legs.

She shivered and leaned forward for a kiss. "I don't know. I don't have those biofeedback tricks you do. If we have to stop in the middle, it will just be torturously frustrating for me."

"Come on," he coaxed. "When was the last time we had sex on the couch?"

"Before Clara was born, probably," she sighed. Though it had gotten quite a workout when the FBI had first given it to him as a going away present. It was amazing the thing was still standing, really.

"Exactly," Jane said. "We're in danger of becoming boring married people who only have sex in a bed."

She snorted. "Are you kidding? I would love to be a married person who has sex in a bed. Lately, we haven't even been able to manage that."

He arranged her legs around his waist and thrust into her lightly. "That is precisely why we need to seize the moment."

She groaned and tightened her legs around him, torn between lust and pragmatic acceptance of reality. "I'm not sure it's a good idea."

"I'll take fooling around for a few minutes, even if we have to stop," he said desperately. He pressed closer and kissed her again, slow and wet. The argument was persuasive.

"Oh, all right," she sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him back. "But if Clara pushes Henry out of the bed, you have to be the one to explain it to the hospital."

mmm

He bit her bottom lip. "The dog will protect him. Come on." He pulled her down from the counter and dragged her over to the couch. He tugged her down on top of him. Then he wove his fingers through her hair, drawing her face down to his for another kiss.

She had to laugh a little at his eagerness. She pushed her hair back from her face with one hand and shifted so she was straddling him properly. Then he thrust into her again and she stopped laughing. She gripped the couch behind his head and threw her head back. "God, Patrick."

He managed to free one breast from the confines of the tank top with his mouth while simultaneously sliding his hands down to her ass to draw her hips closer to his. She gasped. Jane always had been good at multi-tasking. He laved her nipple with his tongue, drawing wet circles on her breast.

"Jesus," she exhaled. He knew just how to touch her to take her from zero to sixty in about five seconds. Of course, it had been a while, so there was some pent up frustration there—no, she didn't want to think about how long it had been. He flicked her nipple with his tongue, drawing her firmly back to the present. Time was a precious commodity, and she didn't want to waste a second of it. She reached for the tie to his pajama bottoms, feverishly working at the knot while desperately wondering what the fastest way to get him inside her was. Could they afford to take the time to remove clothing entirely, or would it be better to just shove her underwear aside and—

"Daddy!"

Their daughter's cry, shrill and distressed, brought reality crashing back over them.

Lisbon closed her eyes and reminded herself that she loved both of her children more than life and lust itself.

Jane released her breast from his mouth with a wet 'plop.' "No, no, no," he groaned. He buried his head between her breasts as though he thought he could hide there.

"Daddy?" The call was desperate now.

He leaned his head back on the couch and closed his eyes. "Coming, sweetheart!" he called down the hall.

"Apparently not," Lisbon muttered, climbing off him.

He patted her ass in commiseration, then levered himself off the couch to attend to their eldest child.

mmm

Lisbon pulled up her tank top and sat back on the couch in frustration. Typical. Just typical.

She stayed on the couch for a few more minutes to let her body cool down again. She tried to turn her brain to tedious household matters to distract herself, but her mind kept returning to the feeling of Jane's hands roaming over her body. Not to mention his mouth. She sighed. Great. Now she was even worse off than when she'd started.

She flopped back onto the couch and stared at the ceiling. Maybe she should just sleep out here. Lord knew Jane had slept on this thing enough over the years. It was comfortable enough. She considered. The pros in favor of this plan were not insignificant. It would be cool. No one would kick her or sit on her feet.

She was going to do it. She would just tell Jane where she was going, and then she would come back out here with a spare pillow and a sheet. She would get a good night's sleep for the first time in two weeks.

She got up and retrieved her water glass, then padded back to the bedroom.

Jane was sprawled out in the middle of the bed, a child on either side of him. Apparently Jane's mission to soothe Clara had been successful—all three of them were out cold. The cat had apparently forgiven Jane for disrupting his rest earlier and was curled up on the pillow above his head again. Only the dog raised his head and looked over at her when she came in.

She went to the foot of the bed and stroked Samson's head a few times, rubbing behind his ears affectionately. Samson closed his eyes in canine ecstasy and laid his head down again, content.

She looked at Jane, a little exasperated that he'd fallen asleep so quickly after getting her all worked up and then leaving her hanging. Still, she supposed she couldn't really blame him. He had to be exhausted after looking after their two little mini-Janes all day while she was at work. Lord knew how much trouble those two could get into when they put their minds to it. She watched him snore. He was still ridiculously attractive, even snoring. He'd gotten lazy about shaving lately, and had let his beard grow out a little. She didn't mind. She'd always secretly liked Jane with a little stubble, though it did get a bit scratchy when he kissed her sometimes.

She thought about the first time she'd seen him with a full beard, sun-kissed and beaming at her after those two long, lonely years without him. Her heart ached a little at the memory of how much she'd missed him. Her mind strayed to the time he'd spent in Vegas during his ill-advised scheme to catch Red John. Come to think of it, he'd been a little stubbly after those six months, too, his hair long and a little wild. That time had actually been worse, in some ways. She remembered how sick with worry she'd been, wondering if she'd ever see him again. How powerless she'd felt to help him. She gazed at him, thinking of all the intervening years, when she'd thought she'd never have this. That she might live her life with nothing but the cold comfort of devotion to duty, never to have a family of her own. She'd never thought Jane would—would be free in that way. She'd never thought she'd know him as her husband, as the father to her children.

He was such a good husband to her. An amazing father. She'd always known he'd been a great dad, but seeing it before her own eyes, with their own children—well, she fell in love with him a little more each day, seeing how loving and patient he was with Clara and Henry.

Her eyes wandered over the sleeping forms of her two children. Clara frowned a little in her sleep, her long curls a tangled cloud on the pillow. Jane always shook his head and said it was spooky how their daughter had turned out to be a carbon copy of her. It was true—Clara definitely favored her when it came to looks, but Lisbon always thought she saw a little of him around the eyes and mouth. Clara had definitely gotten her penchant for manipulation from him, though. Lisbon thought that was quite enough of a legacy.

Henry was more of a mix of the two of them. He'd gotten Jane's coloring, though his sandy hair was perhaps a few shades darker than his father's. His mouth resembled Jane's, but his smile was a little crooked like hers, and he had her nose. She went around to the side of the bed to pull the sheet up around him a little and dropped a kiss on his forehead. Her sweet boy.

Her heart swelled as she gazed down at all three of them, lying there together. She was so extraordinarily lucky.

Jane turned his head and sighed her name in his sleep. "T'resa…" His hand groped the empty sheet, searching for her.

She took it and pressed a kiss to his palm to reassure him she was there. Then she gently picked up Henry and shifted him closer to his father.

She lifted the edge of the sheet and crawled back into bed with her family.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: The first draft of this story is finished! It will be 9 chapters total. Also, if anyone cares, I have a tentative total count on the number of chapters in Beyond Measure. At the moment, I'm estimating 76 chapters total. It could end up being a bit more, but that's my best guess for now. My first draft is complete through Chapter 69. Closing in on it! (Will probably still be a while til I finish, though).

xxx

Lisbon slept late the next morning. When she woke, she was alone in the bed. Even the cat was gone.

Instead, an origami flower rested on the pillow next to her. Jane. She smiled a little. He could be so damn sweet sometimes.

She sat up and picked it up carefully, examining the delicate paper folds. She never had figured out where he'd learned to do this.

She placed it inside the bedside drawer so it wouldn't get damaged by any of their other bedmates and got out of bed.

She wandered out into the kitchen, where the scent of freshly brewed coffee beckoned her like a siren's call.

Jane stood by the stove, cooking eggs.

Clara sat at the table with a piece of paper and a marker, her mouth forming an unconscious pout as she concentrated fiercely on drawing out the letter 't.' Henry sat under the table with the dog, moving a toy truck in a slow, deliberate half-circle around himself.

The cat twined around her ankles, meowing in a plaintive demand for attention. Lisbon obligingly stooped to pet him, then stopped and kissed Clara on top of the head. "Morning, Clara Bell," she said.

"Morning, Mommy," Clara returned, not looking up from her work.

Lisbon bent and looked under the table. "Morning, Henry."

Henry waved his truck at her, then went back to his game.

Lisbon went to fetch her coffee. "Thanks for the flower," she said to Jane on the way to the coffee maker, reaching up to greet him with a kiss.

"Mm, you're welcome," he said, kissing her back lightly. "Sorry we got interrupted last night."

"Me, too," she said with regret.

He slid his arms around her waist and locked his fingers at the small of her back. "Think it's too early to send the kids to boarding school?" he murmured, low enough that the children wouldn't hear.

As if he could bear to be parted from his children for longer than twenty-four hours at a time. She shook her head. "You'd be begging me to go get them before lunchtime on the first day."

"No, I wouldn't," he protested. He paused. "I'd at least wait until afternoon snack was over, anyway. That would at least give me a few hours alone with you. I can do a lot with a few hours."

Boy, did she know that all too well. Thinking about that now, however, was hardly helpful. "We'll figure something out," she said, patting his butt sympathetically.

He tightened his grip on her. "When? Watching you wander around in these short shorts and not being able to do anything about it is torture."

"I don't know," she admitted. "Soon, I hope."

"Mommy, how do you spell 'chicken?'" Clara asked from the table, looking up from her paper.

Lisbon tore her eyes from Jane and the way he was looking at her with some difficulty. "Huh?"

"How do you spell 'chicken?'" Clara repeated impatiently.

Lisbon spelled it for her. Jane nuzzled her neck while she did so, distracting her. She swatted him away. "Stop that," she ordered. "Now you're torturing both of us."

Unrepentant, he stole another kiss. "Misery loves company."

"I need my coffee now," she said firmly, extricating herself from his arms. If she couldn't have Jane giving her the best kind of wake up call there was, she was definitely in dire need of the next best thing.

She fetched her coffee and headed back to the kitchen table. She sat down and watched her daughter over the rim of her coffee cup. "What are you writing there, Clara?" she asked curiously.

"A letter," Clara said matter of factly.

"Who are you writing a letter to?"

"To you."

"A letter to me?" Lisbon said, surprised. "What for?"

"Cause I miss you."

"You miss me?" Lisbon repeated blankly. "But I'm right here."

"I know that," Clara said, her voice thick with scorn. "I miss you when you're _not_ here. Like when you come home late from work."

The words hit Lisbon like shrapnel to the chest. "Oh, honey," she said, stricken. "I'm sorry."

"S'okay," Clara said, not meeting her eyes.

Lisbon reached out across the table and touched her hand. "Hey." She squeezed Clara's hand and Clara finally looked up. "I'd rather be here with you. You know that, right? It's just hard for me to get away sometimes when we're in the middle of a case."

"Why don't you quit?" Clara asked petulantly. "Then you could just stay here and play with me and Daddy. And Henry," she added as an afterthought. Clearly her brother didn't rate as high as her father in terms of desirable playmates.

"It's not so simple as that," Lisbon said slowly, drawing back. She glanced at Jane, wondering if he might have said something that prompted this request, but the concerned frown he wore as he abandoned the eggs and turned to look at Clara told her this was news to him, too.

Henry appeared at Lisbon's side and tugged on Lisbon's arm. She looked at him. He head-butted her arm gently and made a silly face at her. She smiled and stroked his soft curls.

"And Samson and Mr. Tigerlily," Clara wheedled. Mr. Tigerlily was the cat. His name was more often abbreviated to 'Mr. T' by her parents, but Clara persisted in calling him by his full name. She was the one who had named him in the first place.

Henry raised his arms in the universal signal for 'up,' the truck still clutched tightly in his hand. Lisbon lifted him onto her lap obligingly, wrapping her arms securely around him. He ran his truck along the length of her forearm, the plastic wheels kneading the muscles under the skin.

"Clara Bell, we've talked about this, haven't we?" Jane said gently. "Your mommy goes and fights bad guys during the day so all the other mommies and daddies and their kids can be safe at night."

"But I need her to keep _me_ safe," Clara wailed.

"And she's doing that," Jane said firmly. "She keeps us all safe." He met Lisbon's eyes. "Every day."

Lisbon sent him a grateful smile, relieved that this was not a battle she'd have to fight on multiple fronts. Jane had made his peace with her career choice long ago. She knew he still worried about her, but once they'd moved past that particular conflict in their own relationship, he'd been nothing but supportive of her decision to keep working.

"Adeline's mommy quit her job," Clara said stubbornly. "And now she makes cupcakes all day."

Lisbon struggled to process this for a moment before she remembered that Adeline's mom was a former tax attorney who had decided to turn her baking hobby into her own business. "The thing is," Lisbon said slowly as Henry leaned forward and banged his truck on the table. She moved her coffee cup farther away. "I'm not very good at making cupcakes."

This gave Clara pause. "That's true," she grudgingly acknowledged after a moment's consideration. "The ones you made for my birthday when Daddy got his cough were yucky."

Lisbon was startled into a laugh. "Yeah, they were, weren't they?" Poor Jane, she thought, thinking back. Clara had caught the virus first, then passed it on to Henry. And after two and half weeks of taking care of two sick, miserable children, Jane caught the virus as well and came down with a bad case of pneumonia.

"Maybe Adeline's mommy could teach you," Clara suggested.

Privately, Lisbon thought that the next time that there was a cupcake related emergency that Jane wasn't available to deal with, she could just save herself the trouble and order the cupcakes from Adeline's mom herself. "Maybe. But I'd rather just eat Daddy's cupcakes, wouldn't you?"

Clara brightened. "Yeah. With sprinkles."

"Of course," Lisbon agreed, kissing Henry on the top of the head. "Daddy always makes cupcakes with sprinkles."

"That's because he's the best daddy ever," Clara said confidently. Henry hummed in agreement.

"Yeah," Lisbon said, looking over at Jane. "He is."

"Well, this daddy says it's time for breakfast," Jane announced. "Who wants eggs?"

"Me!" Lisbon and Clara chorused at the same time. Henry banged his truck on the table enthusiastically in response.

"Coming right up."

Lisbon looked back at Clara. "So… can I read my letter now?"

Clara looked at her appraisingly, clearly calculating which course of action would be more beneficial to her cause: to hand the letter over now, or withhold it until a more advantageous moment. Lisbon always found it slightly disturbing to see that calculating look, so familiar in Jane's face, looking out at her from a mirror image of her own green eyes. "All right," Clara said at last. She pushed the letter across the table. "Here."

Henry wriggled down off Lisbon's lap and went into the kitchen to show Jane his truck. He ran the truck up Jane's leg. Jane stroked his head affectionately with one hand and continued serving eggs out onto plates with the other.

Lisbon picked up her letter. It read as follows:

"Dear Mommy,

I love you. I like when we eat ice cream. I like when you play catch with me the best. No I like when you read me stories the best. We should get chickens.

Love, Clara."

A lump rose in Lisbon's throat. She read the letter twice, a soft smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

Clara got down from her chair and came over to hover at Lisbon's elbow. "Do you like it?" she asked anxiously.

Lisbon swallowed the lump in her throat. "I love it," she said honestly. She put her arm around her daughter and gave her a hug. "Thank you for writing it."

Clara eyed it critically. "It's not as neat as I wanted." Clara had very high standards for herself. She got notoriously frustrated when she failed to meet them.

Jane set down two plates of eggs and fruit, one at Clara's place and one in front of Lisbon. "That's because you're a perfectionist like your mother. You'll get neater as you get older. Right now your fine motor skills haven't caught up with the speed of your great brain."

Clara scowled. "But I wanted it to be nice _now_."

"It's wonderful," Lisbon assured her. "It's one of the best letters I've ever read."

Mollified by the praise, Clara preened. "Daddy helped me spell the words," she said with false modesty.

Lisbon looked at Jane as he retrieved the next pair of plates from the kitchen. "That was nice of him." Jane winked at her as he set the two plates down.

"He's very nice," Clara agreed.

Lisbon took a bite of her eggs. "So…we should get chickens?" That was the one part of the letter she hadn't quite followed.

"Yes," Clara said with certainty. "That way, we can have eggs every day."

Lisbon laughed. "You are your father's daughter, that's for sure."

Clara frowned. "I'm _your_ daughter, too."

"Of course you are," Lisbon assured her. "It's just an expression. It means you're like your daddy in a lot of ways."

"You're like your mommy in lots of ways, too," Jane told Clara as he helped Henry into his booster seat. Henry reached for his eggs and stuffed a huge handful into his mouth.

"Like what?" Clara asked Jane hopefully.

"Well, you have a great big heart like mommy," Jane told her. He sneaked a glance at Lisbon. "And you're very bossy like her." Lisbon threw her napkin at him.

"I am not _bossy_ ," Clara said indignantly.

Jane raised his eyebrows. "What do you call it when you tell all the kids at school what to do all the time?"

"I'm _organized_ ," Clara said after a moment's consideration. This was a new addition to her vocabulary that she was very proud of. "I'm good at _organizing_ people."

Jane chuckled. "Yes, you are."

"You're very good at organizing people into doing what you want to do," Lisbon commented. "But sometimes you could be better at remembering to let the other kids have a turn having their own ideas about what they want to do."

"But my ideas are the best ones," Clara protested.

Lisbon looked at Jane. "Yeah," she said dryly. "The bossiness is all me."

Jane grinned, unrepentant. "She's intense and particular, too."

"Is that good?" Clara said uncertainly.

"Absolutely," Jane assured her. He looked back at Lisbon. "Those are two of my favorite things about your mother."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. Henry paused in his consumption of his eggs and looked back and forth between them. Lisbon made a funny face at him. He laughed and banged a fistful of eggs on the table in delight.

After breakfast, while Jane took Henry to get dressed, Lisbon went to Clara's chair and knelt beside it. "I have to get ready for work now. But I want you to know I really love my letter."

"Really?" Clara said hopefully.

Lisbon stroked her hair. "Really."

"Daddy said he used to write you letters when he missed you, so I wanted to write one, too," Clara informed her.

"When I read the letters your daddy wrote to me, they always made me feel closer to him, even though he was very far away. And you know what?"

Clara fixed her green-eyed gaze on her mother with laser like focus. Jane was right—their daughter's intensity sometimes felt like a tangible thing. "What?"

"I'm going to take your letter to work with me. Then when I miss you, I can read it, and it will make me feel closer to you."

"You miss me when you're at work?" Clara said, eyes wide.

Lisbon traced her finger over one soft cheek. "Of course I do."

"Good," Clara said, satisfied.

Lisbon smiled. "You know what else?"

"What?"

Lisbon poked her softly in the stomach. "I'm going to write you a letter, too, so you have something to make you feel closer to me, even when we're apart."

"What are you going to write me a letter about?" Clara asked curiously.

Lisbon smiled and ruffled her hair. "Guess you'll have to wait to read it and find out."

Clara pouted. "I hate waiting."

Okay, Lisbon had to admit that particular trait had definitely come from her. "I know. But sometimes letters are even better when you have to wait for them a little while." She thought of how eagerly she'd torn into each new letter from Jane when it arrived from the post office. How treasured each precious letter was.

"Really?" Clara said skeptically.

"Yes. I promise."

"All right," Clara sighed.

Lisbon leaned forward and kissed her on the head. "I love you, darling girl."

Clara wrapped her skinny arms around her neck and clutched at her tightly. "I love you, too," she whispered into her ear.

Lisbon cradled her close and savored the feeling of her daughter's tiny, warm body pressed against hers.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I forgot to mention last chapter that Idan's wonderful story 'Letters to Teresa' helped inspire the letters in this story.

xxx

Lisbon taped Clara's letter to her computer monitor when she got to work, then sat back to admire her handiwork. She re-read it twice, smiling foolishly at it. She shook her head. Chickens, indeed.

Wylie ambled over, two cups of coffee in hand. "Hey," he said, handing her one of the mugs.

"Morning," she greeted him, accepting the coffee gratefully. Jane was on a mission to reduce her caffeine intake and only let her have one cup in the morning before she left for work. Wylie's coffee wasn't as good as Jane's, but she would take what she could get. Besides, she was down from three cups to two, so that was progress, right? What Jane didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Wylie nodded at the sheet of paper taped to her monitor. "What's that?"

Lisbon turned the monitor towards him so he could see. "A letter from Clara."

Wylie's face softened as he read it. "Okay, I know I'm supposed to be a big bad FBI man now that I'm a quasi field agent, but that is seriously adorable."

"I know, right?" Lisbon said, pleased. She was biased, of course, but really. It _was_ adorable. "I'm going to write her one back later."

"She's a good writer, for a kindergartner," Wylie commented. "When I was that age, I could barely write the alphabet."

"Best in her class," Lisbon confirmed. "She won't let you forget it, either. Jane eggs her on, of course."

"Shocking," Wylie said with a wry grin.

"I know. I can't get too mad at him, though. He's so proud of her it's a wonder all the buttons on those old vests of his haven't popped off by now."

Wylie shot her a knowing look. "Yeah, I can see he's the only one."

"Of course I'm proud of her," Lisbon said, acknowledging the point with a smile. "Unfortunately, sometimes I can't let her know exactly how much. She is a Jane, after all. Her ego is already four times the size of a normal person's without two parents feeding the inborn inclination to arrogance."

Wylie looked at the letter again. "I guess it's hard when she's so smart. I mean, I remember the last time I visited she was already starting in on chapter books. She must be pretty far ahead of her classmates, isn't she?"

Lisbon nodded. "Jane works with her a lot. He worries that she won't be challenged enough in class if she's stuck with only the normal curriculum to keep her occupied. He assigns her homework to do in her head to keep her from getting bored."

"Jane assigns her homework?" Wylie said, disbelieving. "I thought he was allergic to paperwork in all forms."

"Well, it's not exactly traditional," Lisbon allowed. "Sometimes it's normal things like math problems, but sometimes it's things like, 'identify and memorize every item of purple clothing worn by anyone in your class today.'" Or 'analyze the micro-expressions of your classmates and determine if any of them are liars.' She'd never forget one particularly mortifying incident when the school called her to inform her the assistant teacher had broken down crying because her five-year-old daughter had essentially browbeaten the young woman into admitting she'd lied about the reason she'd been late to work. That had been a real picnic to deal with. Not only had she had to drive over to the school in the middle of the day and explain to her child that sometimes grownups lied about silly things because they didn't think other people would understand if they told the truth, but she'd had to give an extremely embarrassing apology to the assistant teacher. She'd assured her that she wouldn't tell any of the other parents that she'd been late to work because her boyfriend had persuaded her to indulge in an extra-long shower together, but that promise apparently hadn't done much for the young woman's morale. Even now, months later, when she went to pick up Clara at the after-school drop off point, the poor woman still refused to meet her eyes. Lisbon felt bad for her, but couldn't see a solution that wouldn't cause them both even further embarrassment. It was all grossly unfair. _She_ didn't care what the woman got up to in her free time. She was a good teacher, that was all that mattered. As she'd told Jane at the time, thoroughly annoyed by the predicament his 'assignment' had gotten her into, the woman was entitled to conduct her private life as she saw fit without it being subjected to scrutiny by preternaturally nosy five-year-olds. Jane, of course, found the whole thing highly entertaining and didn't demonstrate the least sign of remorse.

Wylie scrunched up his nose in confusion. "Purple clothing?"

Lisbon shrugged. "It was something about teaching her pattern recognition."

Cho came into the bullpen then, distracting them from further discussion of Clara's many talents. "New case," he announced. "Body found in the broom closet in the federal courthouse down in San Antonio." He handed Lisbon a file. "Briefing in five, then we'll hit the road."

"Sounds good," Lisbon said, taking the file and leafing through it.

Twenty minutes later, they grabbed their gear and headed out.

"Lisbon," Wylie called, hurrying up to them as they waited for the elevator. He held out a folded piece of paper to her. "I have something for you."

"What's this?" Lisbon asked, taking it from him.

"A letter," Wylie explained. "Will you deliver it for me?"

She turned the piece of paper over and saw the name 'Clara' written in block letters on the back. She looked back up at Wylie and smiled. "Sure thing."

Wylie beamed. "Great."

The elevator doors dinged open and Lisbon and Cho went in.

"Good luck in San Antonio," Wylie said. "Call me if you need anything."

"Will do," Lisbon assured him, punching the button for the ground floor. "See you later."

Wylie responded in kind and headed back to his desk.

"What was that about?" Cho asked as the doors closed.

"Clara," Lisbon told him. "She wrote me a letter. Apparently she thinks we should get chickens."

"Chickens?" Cho said blankly.

"So we can have fresh eggs every day," Lisbon explained.

"Huh," Cho said, non-plussed.

"I took a picture of it on my phone if you want to read it," Lisbon offered. Okay, maybe it was excessive, but what if something happened to the original? She wanted to preserve it against any interference of the elements. Besides, this way she could re-read it whenever she wanted.

Cho shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

She handed Cho her phone, and his eyes scanned the screen, betraying no emotion. "Cute," he said when he'd finished, handing it back to her.

The elevator dinged again, and they walked out.

"One car or two?" Lisbon asked Cho, as they paused to pick up keys from the van pool.

"Just one, I think," Cho said. "I figure we'll stick around the courthouse most of the day, so I don't think we'll need to split up."

"Got it," Lisbon said, picking up the keys.

"You mind driving?" she asked as they entered the parking lot.

He stopped at the car assigned to them and gave her an odd look. "No."

"Great," she said, tossing him the keys.

The line between Cho's eyebrows creased ever so slightly. "You feeling all right?" Though they often split the driving, he knew she preferred to be the one behind the wheel most of the time.

"Fine," she said, climbing into the passenger seat and rummaging in the glove compartment for a pen. "I just have a letter to write."

Xxx

Lisbon got home late that night. The case had seemed straightforward enough at first, but two lying judges later, it seemed this would not be the open and shut case it first appeared to be. Thankfully Cho had no inclination to spend the night in San Antonio. Judging by the way he kept checking his watch, it seemed he was just as eager as she was to get back. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she drove them back to Austin, noting the line of tension in his shoulders. She hoped everything was all right. It was unusual for Cho to display signs of impatience. She didn't press, however. If there was something Cho wanted to tell her, he would let her know in his own time.

They had to stop by the office for a few minutes so Lisbon could pick up her car. Before she left, Cho thrust a piece of paper in her hands. "For Clara," he said gruffly, and turned to head back into his office. Lisbon stared after him in astonishment, then tucked the paper safely into her pocket and headed back to the parking lot.

She made it back to the cabin just in time for the kids' bedtime.

"Hey," Jane greeted her, dropping a kiss on her lips when she walked in the door. "I was just about to put them down."

Lisbon sighed into the kiss. "Sorry I missed dinner."

"Not to worry, my dear," he said. He gave her another peck and released her. "I saved you some of the good stuff. Do you want to heat it up while I put the kids to bed?"

She shook her head. "No, let me take care of bedtime. I hate missing time with them in the evenings."

"Very well," he said. "I'll make you up a plate while you wrangle the munchkins."

Lisbon supervised the nightly squabble over who got to spit in the sink first when teeth were brushed, then herded the kids into their respective bedrooms. "Henry, why don't you pick out a story for me to read while I tuck Clara in, okay?" she said. Experience had taught her that keeping the kids separated at this stage of the bedtime ritual was more likely to produce calm, sleepy children than allowing them to ramp each other up right before bed the way they inevitably would if she tried to manage the whole effort as a single unified process. The arguments over story selection alone were enough to threaten peace in the union.

Henry nodded and started poring over the books on the shelf in his room.

Lisbon turned to Clara as she led her into her room. "What story do you want to hear tonight?"

"Frog and Toad," Clara said firmly. This was an old standby.

"Okay," Lisbon agreed. She got Clara tucked into her bed, then curled up on top of the comforter and settled down next to her to revisit the adventures of Frog and Toad.

Clara leaned her head against Lisbon's arm as she read, tracking the words on the page with her eyes as she listened.

When Lisbon finished the story, Clara proved reluctant to relinquish her arm. "Don't go, Mommy."

"I have to go read Henry his story," Lisbon said gently. "It's his turn now. You wouldn't like it if I read Henry a story and then didn't bother to come in here to read you one, would you?"

"Just one more story," Clara pleaded. "Please?"

Lisbon looked at her intently. Clara was not above shedding a few crocodile tears to worm an extra story out of her parents, but for her to truly be this clingy was unusual. Normally, she forged ahead with her chosen course of action far too independently for either of her parents' liking. It was possible that she was faking, of course, but Lisbon could usually tell the difference. A desperate edge to her plea signaled the presence of real distress behind the request. "Everything okay, Bluebell?" she asked softly.

Clara buried her face in Lisbon's arm. "Yes," she said, her voice muffled.

Lisbon stroked her hair. "You know you can tell me if something is wrong, right?"

Clara nodded into her arm but didn't lift her head.

Lisbon hesitated. "Did something happen at school today?"

A shake of the head.

"You sure?" Lisbon double-checked.

Another nod. "Please, I just want one more story," Clara said, her voice muffled.

"Okay," Lisbon relented. "But how about I read you something a little different, instead?"

Clara lifted her head from Lisbon's arm and eyed her warily. "What?"

Lisbon reached into her pocket and produced three folded pieces of paper. "I have some letters for you."

Clara stared at them. "You wrote me a letter?"

"I wrote one of them," Lisbon told her. "The other ones are from Cho and Wylie."

Clara straightened. "Really?"

"Yeah. They saw the letter you wrote to me. When I told them I was writing one back to you, they decided they wanted to write to you, too."

"Cool," Clara said, awed.

"Want me to read them to you?"

"Yeah!" Clara said eagerly.

"Okay. I'll read the one from Wylie first. Here goes." Lisbon cleared her throat and read:

"Dear Clara,

I saw your awesome letter to your mom and thought I would write one, too. I had fun playing zoom blasters with you last time I visited the cabin. I hope we can play again sometime soon. Maybe next time we hang out we can go to the zoo. What is your favorite animal? Mine is the emu. Mainly because of the name. But also because it's a big ass – I mean, a ridiculously big bird. Also, its eggs are green, which is kind of cool. The outside, I mean, not the inside like green eggs and ham. Anyway, maybe we could go see them sometime. P.S. I wrote a new video game I think you would like. Do you think your dad would let you play it with me if I asked nicely?

Your friend,

Jason"

"Wylie's funny," Clara commented.

"Yes, he is," Lisbon agreed.

"Can we go to the zoo with him?"

"I'm sure that can be arranged."

"'Kay." Clara yawned. "But I like the penguins better than the emu."

"I'm sure Wylie wouldn't mind checking out the penguins, too," Lisbon assured her.

"Read Cho's next," Clara instructed her.

Lisbon suppressed a smile. Clara must be feeling better if she was getting back to her bossy self. She obeyed.

"Dear Clara,

Have you read any good books lately? I just finished the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. It was good. I'm not sure it's your style. If you're looking for something new, I recommend the Encyclopedia Brown books. They're about a boy detective who solves crimes by noticing little facts that nobody else thinks are important. Seems appropriate for you, given your family heritage. Let me know what you think if you decide to try them out.

Sincerely,

Cho"

"That sounds good," Clara said. "Can we get them?"

"Sure," Lisbon said. "Let's look for them the next time we go to the library." She resolved not to mention Cho's suggestion to Jane before their next excursion to the public library, or she was likely to come home to find he'd bought a box set.

Clara tugged on her arm. "Read yours now."

Lisbon dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "Yes, ma'am."

"Dear Clara,

Thank you for your beautiful letter. I am so lucky to have such a smart, caring daughter like you. I put your letter by my computer so I could see it all day and think of you. I miss you so much when I'm at work. Sometimes I think about leaving so I can spend more time with you and your dad and your brother, but then I think about the kind of people I want you and your brother to be when you grow up and I know I have to stay. In some ways it would be easier to retreat from the world and just enjoy all the crazy ideas your father comes up with about sailing around the world in a yacht or living our lives on a beach somewhere, but I don't want you and your brother to grow up apart from the world. It might be safer, but it would also be more lonely, and I don't want that for you. I want you to be strong, surrounded by friends who love you, and for you to know enough of compassion to know how to give it to other people when they need a helping hand from someone. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've always thought that one of the ways to teach you that is to try to be an example for you by working in a job where sometimes you have to put your own inclinations second, after the responsibility to help other people in need, so you and your brother can see how important it is to serve others to have a truly rich life. I hope someday you can understand that. In the meantime, I want you to know I love you so much sometimes I think it's going to spill out of me. You and your brother have made my life richer than I could have ever imagined.

Love,

Mommy"

Clara traced her fingers over the letters, her normally expressive face oddly impassive. "It's a good letter," she said finally.

"Yeah?" Lisbon said, smiling. "I'm glad you approve."

"Can I put it in the box with your special letters from Daddy so it's safe?" Clara asked.

Lisbon kissed her hair again. "Of course."

"Can I keep it with me now, though?" Clara asked.

"Certainly. It's your letter. You can do whatever you want with it."

"Good," Clara said, satisfied, and tucked it under her pillow.

Lisbon stayed with her a few minutes longer, stroking her hair and humming a few bars of "Livin' on a Prayer" the way she had when Clara was a baby. Clara clung to her arm and slept.

Lisbon waited until she was sure Clara was asleep, then gently extricated herself from her grasp and went to see to Henry.

Henry was wide awake, waiting for her, but there was no censure in his gaze. He simply waited for her to crawl into bed beside him and handed over his story of choice. She looked down at the cover. Henry had chosen 'Make Way for Ducklings.' His favorite.

She read the story to him, smiling at his delight in the adventures of Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack.

When she was finished, she read him the second letter she'd written that day.

"Dear Henry,

I hope you managed to keep your father and sister out of trouble today. I know you're the only sensible one around here when I'm not home. Did you have a good day? My day was fine. I saw a giant sculpture of a dinosaur on the way to San Antonio today. I think you would have liked it. I might have to go back there tomorrow – if I do, I'll take a picture of it and send it to you.

The case is moving slower than I'd like. Sometimes I miss having your dad around to help speed up the process of solving cases, but then I think about him being here with you and Clara and I'm so grateful that you are all together. It's just as it should be. You're so lucky to have a father like him. He would do anything in the world to keep us happy and safe. I've loved your father a long time, but I never knew how brave he was until you and Clara were born. He lost so much that it would be easy for him to say it was too hard to risk his heart again, but he pours all his love into us every day despite everything. He worries so much about you and your sister and me, but he doesn't let it stop him from doing everything in his power to bring as much joy as possible into our lives. I hope someday you'll grow up to be a brave man like him. From what I've seen so far, there's not a doubt in my mind that you will. I love you, my beautiful brave boy.

Love,

Mommy"

She looked down, expecting him to have fallen asleep in the middle of her rambling, completely-inappropriate-for-a-two-year-old letter. He hadn't, though. He looked back at her, his gaze alert. Not for the first time, she had the feeling he'd understood far more of what she was saying than he ought to have been able to, given his tender years. She kissed him on the forehead. "Good night, my love."

He gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek and snuggled down under the blankets. She smiled and stroked his sandy curls, then got up and quietly closed the door behind her, leaving it ajar a couple inches to let some light in from the hall in case he woke up in the night.

Later, when Jane and Lisbon were getting ready for bed, Lisbon thought about Clara's unusual clinginess. She spat her toothpaste into the sink and rinsed her mouth, wondering if something was going on with Clara at school, despite her protests. Jane, following suit, spat his own toothpaste into the sink, and derailed her thoughts by saying, "I've been thinking. Maybe we should think about moving back into the city."

Lisbon drew back instinctively. "What? Why?"

He shrugged. "This place is a bit small for four people. And it would make your commute shorter."

"It's fine," she said defensively. "I don't mind the commute. And we don't need more space."

"Maybe not now," he said. "But Henry's room is practically a closet. When he's bigger, his feet will hang out into the hallway if he tries to lie down flat in there. And this place only has one full bathroom. Believe me, when they're teenagers, we are not going to want to share a bathroom with them."

"But—" She struggled to marshal her thoughts, but it was difficult to argue against him when he was being so logical. The truth was, her reaction was entirely illogical. He was right. The place was small for four people. And it would be more convenient to live in the city, not only for her commute, but in terms of shepherding the kids to and from school and various activities.

But none of that mattered. Because logic had nothing to do with her reaction. It was one hundred percent emotional. This was the house Jane had built for them. That they'd built together, really. The place where Jane had promised to love her for the rest of their lives. This was the place her children had taken their first steps. She didn't want to move.

Jane, reading the obvious dismay on her face, took her into his arms. "Hey. I can see you're not wild about the idea. There's no need to panic about it."

"I'm sorry," she said into his t-shirt. "I'm overreacting."

"Don't be sorry," he soothed. "Just walk me through it. What don't you like about the idea?"

"The part about moving out of this house."

"I'd hire movers. They can do all the heavy lifting."

"No, I mean, the part about _leaving_ this house. We got engaged here. Our kids were born here." She thought of the look on Jane's face when she'd told him she was pregnant with Clara, out by their little pond. This was the first place she'd had a real home since she was twelve years old. She didn't want to let it go. She took a shaky breath. "I—I don't want to move."

Jane kissed her hair. "Okay. We won't move."

"Really?" she said, looking up at him, unable to believe he was willing to give in so easily. Normally when Jane took a notion into his head, he wouldn't let it go until every possible avenue of debate had been exhausted.

"It was just a thought. I didn't realize you were so emotionally attached to the place. I always thought you agreed to move here to more to indulge me than anything else."

"It's not something I would have picked out myself," Lisbon admitted. "But—well, we have a lot of history here." She had a lot of memories with Jane over the years, but all the happiest ones were here.

He smiled. "Okay."

"What?" she demanded, suspicious of that smile.

He shook his head, chuckling. "Nothing. I just like catching no-nonsense Agent Lisbon out in a sentimental act."

She smacked him on the chest. "Hush."

He kissed her. "I'm hoping to catch her in another sentimental act shortly," he said, trailing kisses down her neck and backing her into the bedroom. "What do you say? Do you think you're up for it?"

She kissed him back as he maneuvered her into the bedroom. "I don't know," she teased, running her tongue along a tendon in his neck. "It's been a long day. I'm awfully tired. You'd probably have to do most of the work."

"I can live with that," he said. He scooped her up and tossed her on the bed, which was mercifully free of any unwelcome inhabitants, then proceeded to crawl up her body and kiss her again, long and deep.

"You're really okay with the idea of not moving?" she panted as she writhed under his expert hands.

"Yeah," he grunted as he tried to take his clothes off without pausing in his quest to explore every inch of her body. He managed to get his t-shirt half off before he dove back down to resume his ministrations to her breasts and stomach. "We can always expand," he said into her skin as he pressed a series of soft kisses to her belly. "It's not like we don't have space on the land to support a bigger place. We can add a couple extra rooms to this place and we'll be golden."

Lisbon thought about the idea of having construction underway with two small children in the house. But then Jane dipped his tongue into her bellybutton and she decided the rest of this conversation could wait.

She managed to haul him upwards and get his shirt the rest of the way off, and he paused again to delve her mouth with his tongue. God, he was so good at that.

She kissed him back and grabbed his ass to pull him closer. He groaned into her mouth and shifted obligingly.

A shrill scream pierced the moment. Clara.

Jane stopped and closed his eyes. He rested his forehead against hers and sighed. "I'll go."

Lisbon touched his arm. "Let me."

He nodded and flopped back on the bed, defeated.

Lisbon rose and straightened her nightclothes as she padded down the hall to Clara's room.

Clara sat bolt upright in bed, her dark hair matted against her neck. Her breath came sharp and short as she stared into the darkness in front of her.

Lisbon crossed the room and took her daughter into her arms. "Hey," she said softly, pushing Clara's damp hair back from her face. "Everything's okay. I'm here, okay? You're safe."

Clara clung to her. She buried her face in Lisbon's shoulder and cried, great heaving sobs that racked her small body.

Lisbon continued to stroke her hair and made comforting noises.

When Clara's breathing had evened out and her body slumped bonelessly against her mother, Lisbon kissed her hair and said quietly, "Clara Bell, can you tell me what the dream was about this time?"

She'd been asking for two weeks, ever since the nightmares had started. Every time, Clara steadfastly refused, turning her face into Lisbon's shoulder and remaining maddeningly, stubbornly silent on the matter.

Clara shook her head, but this time, the movement was slow and uncertain.

Hope stirred in Lisbon's chest. This was progress. "Clara, sweetie, if you tell me what the dream is about, maybe I can help."

Clara hesitated.

"Is it always the same dream?" Lisbon pressed.

A tentative nod.

"Is someone hurting you in the dream?"

Another, slower nod.

"Who's hurting you?"

Clara licked her lips and uttered her response so softly Lisbon couldn't hear her.

Lisbon bent her head closer. "Honey, I can't hear you. Say the name again. Who's hurting you in the dream?"

Clara looked up, her green eyes shining with tears. Her voice was a frightened whisper. "Red John."

Lisbon's blood went cold. "What did you say?" she asked, very slowly and carefully.

Clara swallowed. "Red John."

Lisbon willed herself not to panic. She kept her voice even and measured. "Where did you hear that name?"

"Emily Barrister's sister said Red John killed my sister Charlotte and her mommy," Clara said, her voice barely audible. "She said Daddy called him names and if I'm not careful, he would come kill me, too."

Lisbon wanted to kill Emily Barrister's sister, whoever she was. She had a vague recollection of a snotty nine-year-old going on fifteen. "What does Emily's sister know about it?" she said angrily.

"She read about it on the internet."

Lisbon reminded herself that plotting the murder of a fourth grader was not what she needed to focus on right now. She wrapped her arms tightly around her daughter. "Clara, you don't need to worry about Red John. He can't hurt you."

"He can't?"

"No, honey. I promise. He can't hurt anyone anymore." She thought of Jane, who still had the occasional nightmare that McAllister was still alive and coming after the people he loved, and reflected that this statement wasn't completely true. The killer had been out of their lives a long time, but he still managed to cause old wounds to surface at the most unexpected times.

Clara sniffed. "How do you know?"

Good God. What was she supposed to say? They had parenting books on everything these days. About divorce, adoption, grief. About poop. Somehow she'd missed the one that told you how to explain to your child that she didn't need to worry about the serial killer who had stalked her parents for a decade because her father had choked the life out of him with his bare hands.

"He's dead," Lisbon said finally.

Clara paused. "Like the rabbit?"

Clara had found a dead rabbit on one of their family walks in the woods several months ago. She'd cried inconsolably when Lisbon had explained gently that the vet wouldn't be able to help the rabbit get better like he'd helped Mr. T get better back when they'd first found him and he was a sick little kitten.

Lisbon hesitated. "Yes. Like the rabbit."

Clara considered this. "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive," Lisbon said with certainty.

Clara was quiet for a moment. "Did he really kill Charlotte?"

Jane and Lisbon had been determined that Clara and Henry be raised with the knowledge that they had a sister they'd never met. They'd seen pictures of Charlotte and Angela, and Jane and Lisbon had made a point to explain to Clara and Henry that Jane had had another family before they were born. Though they'd discussed the need to acquaint their children with the reality of Red John's presence in their life eventually, they'd thought it would happen when they were much older. Lisbon was in no way prepared for this line of questioning.

She didn't know what to say. She didn't want to lie to her child, but the prospect of telling her five-year-old the truth about how her sister had died was horrible to contemplate.

Clara's eyes narrowed. "It's true, isn't it? Red John killed Charlotte."

Lisbon sighed. Having a mini-Jane for a daughter was damned inconvenient sometimes. Even if she tried to lie now, Clara wouldn't believe her. "Yes."

Clara was silent again. "Because Daddy called him names?"

Lisbon shook her head. "It was more complicated than that, Clara Bell. Red John was a very bad man. He hurt a lot of people. But it wasn't anybody's fault but his." No matter what some people's husbands thought.

"And Charlotte didn't get to grow up because of him?" Clara asked.

An unexpected tear rolled down Lisbon's cheek, surprising both Clara and herself. "That's right," she said hoarsely.

Clara touched her finger to the tear on her face in consternation and wonder. "Are you sad, Mommy?"

Lisbon cuddled her closer. "Yes, sweetie. It makes me sad that Charlotte didn't get a chance to grow up."

"Did you know Charlotte?" Clara wanted to know.

Lisbon shook her head. "No. I never met her. But sometimes I feel like I knew her because of how Daddy talks about her."

"Daddy loved her a lot," Clara said.

"Yes. He still does."

"More than me and Henry?" Clara said in a small voice.

Lisbon squeezed her tightly. "No, honey. He loves you all the same amount. But he does get sad sometimes when he thinks about Charlotte because he misses her an awful lot."

"I wish I could have met her," Clara said wistfully.

Lisbon stroked her hair again. "Me, too."

Clara was silent a moment. "You're really sure Red John can't come back?"

Lisbon held her close. "I'm sure."

Clara wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her t-shirt. "Okay."

Lisbon thought of her child waking up in the night, terrified of being killed in her bed. Clara had been having nightmares about this for two weeks. "Sweetie, why didn't you tell me you were worried about this?"

Clara sniffed. "Cause I didn't want to be scared. I want to be brave like you."

"Oh, honey," Lisbon said, horrified. "Being brave doesn't mean you aren't scared. It means you figure out a way to face whatever is scaring you."

Clara sniffled again. "Really?"

"Yeah. And there's a funny thing about fear. Once you face it, usually it isn't so scary anymore."

Clara buried her face in Lisbon's arm again. "I don't know how to stop being scared of Red John."

"Me, neither, sometimes," Lisbon admitted, thinking of Jane and his dreams again. How do you conquer the fear of an idea? Of a memory? She hugged Clara close. "We'll figure it out, though."

Clara looked up at her hopefully. "We will?"

"Yes. We'll figure it out together. Because that's what families do."

Clara tugged on the hem of her tank top. "Will you stay with me til I fall asleep again?"

Lisbon kissed her damp forehead. "Yeah, Bluebell. I'll stay."


	4. Chapter 4

Lisbon woke as Jane's lips brushed across her temple. Sunlight streamed into Clara's bedroom, spilling over the purple unicorn bedspread covering the twin bed in which Lisbon and Clara had fallen asleep the night before. Lisbon, one arm still circled around Clara protectively, lifted her head groggily from Clara's pillow. "What time izzit?" she slurred.

Jane leaned over them and dropped another kiss to the top of Lisbon's head. "Early yet."

Lisbon found the clock with her eyes. "Liar."

"You needed the rest," Jane said, unrepentant. He glanced down at Clara. "You both did."

Lisbon frowned, the implications of Clara's confession of the night before flooding back to her.

Jane studied her intently. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," she sighed. Off his skeptical look, she shook her head slightly, glancing at Clara. "I'll tell you later."

"Okay," Jane said.

Clara sighed in her sleep and turned over, flinging one arm across Lisbon's stomach.

Lisbon rearranged herself around her daughter and stroked her hair. Well. A few more minutes wouldn't hurt.

Xxx

By the time Lisbon had showered, eaten breakfast, and gotten the kids dressed, she was running horribly late. Jane offered to help the kids get ready for school, but though it would have been more convenient, she declined the offer. Like the bedtime ritual, she tried to be there as much as possible for the kids' morning routine, since she missed so much time with them during the day. She watched Clara closely that morning, looking for any additional signs of distress that she might have missed. Clara seemed a little more subdued than normal, but otherwise nothing about her behavior appeared remarkable.

Jane caught her in the hall as she was heading back to the bedroom to look for her keys. "I texted Cho," he told her. "He's going to swing by here and pick you up."

"Oh, really?" Lisbon said gratefully. "That's great. Thanks."

"He said it made more sense for him to pick you up on the way out of town anyway, rather than making you drive all the way downtown just to turn around again as soon as you got to the office."

"I guess that means we're heading back to San Antonio today," Lisbon said with a frown. She really hoped they could wrap up the case quickly and head back to Austin at a reasonable hour. She definitely didn't want to be stuck in San Antonio overnight. She didn't want to be away from Clara tonight.

Jane studied her face. "You going to tell me what's going on?"

Lisbon grimaced. "Clara finally told me what the nightmares are about."

"What is it?" Jane said anxiously. "I've been trying to get her to spill it for two weeks and she's shown no signs of cracking."

Lisbon hesitated.

Jane, of course, picked up on her tension immediately. "What?" he asked with dread. "What are they about?"

"Red John," she said in a low voice.

Jane drew back and went about two shades paler. "What? How…?"

Lisbon explained about Emily Barrister's sister.

Jane swore. "That little…"

"I know," Lisbon said. "I'm going to have words with her parents, believe me."

Jane sighed. "I suppose something like this was inevitable."

"Yeah," Lisbon agreed. "I just didn't think it would be so soon. I thought we'd have time to prepare. To explain."

"So did I," Jane said with a grimace of his own. He chewed the inside of his cheek. "What should we do?"

"I don't know," Lisbon said helplessly.

Jane wordlessly stepped closer to her and put his arms around her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his shoulder gratefully. "We'll figure it out," he murmured into her hair.

She smiled into his shoulder despite herself. "Yeah. We will."

Xxx

Mercifully, she and Cho solved the case quickly once they reached San Antonio and were back in the Austin office by two o clock.

Lisbon wrote up her report dutifully, but distractedly. Half her mind was on Clara the whole afternoon. She was relieved to finally have the solution to the mystery of what was causing her daughter such terrible nightmares, but knowing the root cause only made the ultimate solution more challenging. Skinned knees, a bully at school… these were things she could deal with. This, she had no idea how to fix.

She looked at the clock. It was only three-thirty. She suppressed a sigh. She loved her job, but on days like this, there was nothing she would have liked more than to walk straight out of the office and go spend the rest of the day hanging out with her kid.

Was that part of what this anxiety was about? Was Clara reacting not to the shadow of a long-dead killer, but of Lisbon's own frequent absence from their home life? She looked at Clara's letter, still taped to her monitor. The one her child had written because she missed her mom when she was at work.

She bit her lip. Maybe she should take some time off. Spend some time with Jane and the kids, just the four of them. Jane wouldn't mind—he'd be over the moon about the idea. They could drive down to the coast in the Airstream, spend a few days there.

Except, no, they couldn't. Clara was in school. And while she was sure Jane would scoff at the idea that taking her out of school for a few days would do any harm, Lisbon happened to believe routines were important. She didn't want Clara to grow up thinking she could run off and do whatever she liked because of whatever whim entered her head at a given moment—that was a trait of her father's that she definitely did not want to encourage.

Still. These were extraordinary circumstances. Clara needed her right now. There had to be something she could do.

An idea formed in her mind. Considering it, she tracked down a copy of her contract with the FBI and reviewed the relevant sections. Then she got up and walked over to Cho's office.

"Hey," she said, knocking on his door frame. "You got a minute?"

Cho, who had been staring fixedly at his computer with an expression that indicated he wasn't processing a word in front of him, looked up at her. His eyes betrayed the briefest flicker of confusion. "Sorry, what?"

Lisbon looked at him with some concern. It was unlike Cho to lose focus. "Do you have a few minutes?" she repeated.

He still looked abstracted. "Sure. What's up?"

Lisbon sat down in his visitor chair. "I'm thinking about taking Friday off."

He didn't blink. "Okay."

"Assuming we don't have a case, of course," she qualified.

"Fine."

She fiddled with the fabric covering the arm of the chair. "I was also thinking…"

He looked at her. "Yes?"

She took a deep breath. "How do you feel about alternative work schedules?"

He raised his eyebrows. "On general principle?"

"No," she admitted. "I mean specifically about the idea of me having one."

"You're entitled to it," he said. "All Department of Justice employees are authorized to request flexibility in their work schedules."

"Yes, but what do you think about me having one?" Lisbon pressed. "Do you think it would negatively impact the team?"

He sat back. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, we often end up working long hours when we're in the middle of a case. I was thinking maybe I'd like to start taking Friday afternoons off in weeks when I've worked longer hours at the beginning of the week."

Cho shrugged. "Fine by me."

Lisbon blinked. She hadn't expected this to be so easy. "Really?"

"Doesn't seem like much to ask."

"Oh. Well…thanks."

He raised his eyebrows. "Anything particular that brought this on?"

"It's Clara," Lisbon explained. "Some kid at her school googled Red John and told her about it and she's been having nightmares about it. I want to spend a little extra time with her, make sure she's okay."

"Just while she's dealing with the nightmares?"

"Well, no. I'd like to make it a permanent arrangement. I want to spend more time with both Henry and Clara." She swallowed. "I miss them, sometimes, when I'm at work."

A tiny crease appeared between his brows. "I see."

Lisbon started to feel nervous again. "That's okay, right?"

"I already said it was."

"Yeah, but then you…" Lisbon shook her head. "Never mind. Thanks."

Cho nodded, his eyes looking as though they were focused on something far away.

She watched him intently. He still looked distracted. For Cho, that was the equivalent of downright frazzled for a normal person. "Everything okay?" she asked neutrally.

"Yeah," he said shortly.

"You sure about that?" she said lightly.

He looked at her sharply. He considered the question, then said gruffly, "Shut the door."

"Okay," Lisbon said, startled. It wasn't that bad, was it? She did as she was bidden and returned to the visitor's chair. "Well?" she said expectantly. "What is it?"

He blew out a breath. "Mia's pregnant."

Lisbon's face broke out into a wide smile. "What?! That's great. Congratulations."

"Thanks," he said, his voice bleak.

"What's the matter? Aren't you happy about it?" Lisbon said, wondering if she'd misread the situation.

"Of course I am," he said defensively.

"You don't sound very happy," Lisbon remarked.

He glared at her. "Well, I am."

Ah. Lisbon thought she knew what was going on now. She raised her eyebrows. "And?"

"And… freaked out beyond belief," he confessed.

Lisbon couldn't help it. She laughed.

He scowled. "What's so funny?"

"Sorry," she said contritely, still smiling. "It's just… I've seen you face down the worst killers in the country without even blinking. Seeing you so rattled by the idea of a little tiny baby is…unexpected."

"I don't know anything about kids," he said.

She shrugged. "So you'll learn."

"What if I'm not a good dad?"

"Of course you'll be a good dad," Lisbon said dismissively.

"How do you know?" he persisted.

She fixed him with a look. "I know you."

"I'm serious."

"So am I. What has you so worried about this?"

"I'm not…warm." He met her eyes. There was something very like panic in them. "What if my kid thinks I don't love her enough?"

"It's a girl?" Lisbon said, pouncing on this new intelligence. "That's so exciting!"

"Yeah," he said morosely. "We just found out."

"Hey." Lisbon leaned forward. "Listen to me. You're going to be a great dad. And your child will know how much she is loved."

"How? I'm not like Jane." He gestured vaguely. "You know… all…playful and…cuddly."

"So? Are you going to tell your kid you love her when she goes to sleep at night?"

"I guess so," Cho said doubtfully.

"Read her books at bedtime?"

"Yeah," Cho said, perking up a bit at this.

"Kiss her on the head and tuck her into bed?"

"Of course."

Lisbon spread her hands. "There you go."

He looked dubious. "That's it?"

"There are a few other things you'll pick up along the way," Lisbon said, hiding a smile. "But I think that covers the essentials."

"Huh," Cho said, bemused.

Lisbon got up and walked around the side of the desk. "C'mere," she ordered, holding out her arms expectantly.

Cho got up obediently and let her give him a hug.

"Congratulations, Kimball," Lisbon murmured in his ear. "You're going to be a terrific father." She leaned back and gave him a warm smile. "There's not a doubt in my mind about that."

"Thanks," he said gruffly. He jerked his head towards the door. "Come on. Let's go down to HR. I'll show you where to find the forms for the AWS thing."

Grinning, Lisbon followed him. Cho using paperwork to avoid an emotional display—classic. At least there were somethings in life you could count on. And Cho was going to be a daddy.

She couldn't wait to tell Jane.

Xxx

Lisbon made it home a few minutes early that night.

Clara's eyes lit up when she walked in the door. She abandoned her game on the floor and rushed up to her. "Mommy!" she said, throwing her arms around her waist. "You're home early!"

Lisbon knelt to give her a proper hug. "Well, I missed you an extra lot today, so I thought I'd try to come home a bit early so I could spend some extra time with you."

"Really?" Clara said, pleased.

"Really, truly."

Henry toddled over to greet her as well, Samson at his heels. Henry put his arms around her neck. Samson wagged his tail and nosed his way in between the two children, trying to lick her face. Lisbon laughed and ruffled his fur, successfully keeping him at bay so she could kiss Henry on the top of the head. She indulged herself and took an extra breath to inhale the sweet scent of his soft curls.

Henry tilted his head up and smiled at her, that beautiful, open smile that reminded her so much of Jane's, except without any trace of trickery or hint of a con lurking beneath the surface.

"Okay, you greedy creatures," Jane said from the hallway with mock sternness. "Stop hogging Mommy and keeping her all to yourselves. My turn." He crossed the room and pulled Lisbon to her feet, then gathered her into his arms and greeted her with a long, deep kiss.

"Mm," she said, smiling into his mouth. "I should come home early more often."

He patted her on the ass. "Yes, you should." He let her go and looked into her face searchingly. "Everything okay?"

Recognizing the trace of anxiety in his expression, she smiled at him reassuringly. "Everything's fine. I just wanted to spend a little extra time at home today to make up for getting home late last night."

His expression cleared. "Ah. In that case, this is truly an occasion worthy of celebration. I think a special dessert may be in order. What's your pleasure, my dear?"

She grinned. "Surprise me."

Clara, tired of not being the center of attention, tugged on her sleeve. "Mommy, come look at my drawing I did today," she said impatiently.

"Coming," Lisbon said. She slipped her hand into Clara's and allowed herself to be tugged over to the drawing table in the corner.

It was good to be home.

Xxx

"Hey, guess what," Lisbon said to Jane later, when they were doing the dishes from dinner.

"Okay. Let's see." He eyed her critically. "Something good happened at work today," he guessed.

She rolled her eyes. She should have known better than to open a conversation with Jane with 'Guess what.' "Yes, it did," she said, determined to share the news before he somehow guessed it from her micro-expressions or something. "Cho and Mia are having a baby."

His face lit up. "That's great!"

"It's a girl," she told him.

"We'll have to send them something," Jane said.

"Good idea," Lisbon said. Jane was good at gifts. He'd be sure to pick out the perfect thing for their friends.

Jane chuckled. "Oh, I can't wait to give Cho fatherly advice."

"Don't mess with him too much," Lisbon said, a warning in her voice. That was the last thing Cho needed right now.

"I won't," Jane said. He grinned. "Not too much."

Lisbon swatted him with a dishtowel. "Be good, or I won't tell you my other piece of news."

"You wouldn't like me if I was good all the time," Jane pointed out. "Think how boring life would be."

"I'll settle for some of the time," Lisbon said dryly. "Now, do you want to hear my news or not?"

"Sorry," Jane said contritely. He wisely refrained from guessing. "Shoot."

"I talked to Cho about alternative work schedules today."

"Sounds like some dreadfully dull administrative detail," Jane remarked.

Lisbon ignored this. "The point is, federal employees have the option to request flexible work schedules. I asked Cho if I could take Friday afternoons off from now on in weeks when we work long hours earlier in the week."

Jane went very still.

"Jane?" she said, ducking her head to try to get a look at his face. "Did you hear me?"

"I heard you," he said in an odd voice. He set down the dish he'd been scrubbing in the sink, then turned and took the dish she was drying from her. Then he put his arms around her and hugged her so tightly her ribs might crack.

This reaction, while gratifying on one level, was worrying on another. "Jane?" she asked tentatively. She tightened her own arms around him. "You okay?"

"Of course," he said, letting her go immediately. He gave her a too-bright smile. "That's excellent news."

Lisbon wasn't buying it. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter," he said with false cheer.

"Spill, Patrick," she ordered.

He evaded her gaze. "It's nothing. Really. I'm glad you're taking time for yourself for once."

She raised her eyebrows. "And?"

He sighed. "And it will be four fewer hours a week I have to spend worrying about you."

She drew back. "I thought—I thought you didn't mind about my decision to go back to work after having the kids."

"I don't," he hastened to assure her.

"We talked about it," Lisbon insisted. They _had_. She hadn't made this decision unilaterally. She'd thought he supported the idea of her continuing to work. Her throat closed. Suddenly it was difficult to breathe.

"Settle down," Jane said in a quiet, soothing voice. "We did talk about it. I'm glad you're doing something that makes you happy. I'm enormously proud of the work that you do. I'm glad you're out there keeping the world safe for our children."

Lisbon inhaled sharply. "But?"

He sighed again. "What do you want me to say? You know I still worry about you."

"Yeah, but…"

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. "But what?"

She gestured helplessly. "I thought you'd made your peace with the whole worrying about me thing."

"I have," he said.

"It doesn't sound like it."

He was quiet for a moment. "It's a choice," he said finally.

Lisbon stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"It's like…sit ups."

He was making no sense. "Sit ups?"

"Yeah. You know how if you do sit ups every day, you build up your sit up endurance?"

"You never do sit ups," she pointed out.

"Not the point, Teresa," he said, exasperated.

"What is the point?"

"Sit ups suck," he said decisively. "But let's say hypothetically you decide to start doing them because you know they're good for you. At first, you can barely do ten. You're exhausted and your muscles are sore after. But if you keep doing them, eventually you get better and you can do more of them without getting sore at all. But if you slack off and stop doing them for a while, then you lose everything you've built up and you have to start again at square one."

Lisbon shook her head. "I don't understand."

"The point is, if you want to be good at sit ups, you have to make the decision to do them every day. And sometimes you might not feel like doing them but you decide to do them anyway, because it's the best thing for you in the long run. Making peace with the dangers you face every day—it's like the sit ups. Each day, I have to make a conscious, disciplined decision to accept those risks."

She was silent for a moment. "I didn't know you thought of it like that."

He shrugged. "It's the closest analogy I could think of."

She bit her lip. "Oh."

"Now you're worrying about me worrying," he observed.

"No, I'm not," she denied, immediately and untruthfully.

"Teresa." He took her hands and clasped them between his. "I don't want you to start fretting over this. You're not responsible for my neuroses."

"But I'm making some of them worse," she said unhappily.

"No, you are not," Jane said firmly. "You make my life better in every possible way. Besides, our system works for us."

She arched an eyebrow. "Our system?"

"Yes," he said patiently. "In exchange for doing a few measly sit ups, the world is safer, my wife gets to do a job she loves, my children have a badass hero for a mother, and my marriage is stronger."

"Our marriage is stronger?"

"Yes," he replied with certainty. "You don't resent me for derailing your career and you appreciate me more because you have a chance to miss me when you're at work."

She gave him a watery smile. "Don't forget my appreciation of you for taking care of our little terrors all day."

"That, too," he agreed.

She bit her lip again and looked down. "I just worry that the sit ups might be taking too much out of you."

He put his hands on her hips and dropped a kiss on her forehead. "Don't worry about that. I can handle it."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and tucked her head against his chest. "Just promise me that if it ever starts to be too much for you, you'll talk to me about it." She thought about the last time he'd freaked out about something like this and couldn't suppress a shudder. She didn't really believe Jane would walk out on her again, not with the kids to consider, but she supposed that long-buried fear haunting her at unexpected moments was destined to remain one of _her_ particular neuroses.

Jane gave her a little squeeze. No doubt he'd intuited the reason behind her shudder, but he didn't call her on it. He simply said, "I promise."

"Good," she mumbled into his chest. Then, remembering, she raised her head so she could look into his face. "I almost forgot—did I tell you I'm taking the day off on Friday?"

His face lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah. I want to spend some extra time with Clara. I'm worried about these nightmares she's having."

He sobered immediately. "I talked to her today. About Red John, I mean."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He turned away from her and returned to the dishes, looking a bit shaky.

Lisbon watched the line of tension strung across his shoulders as he sudsed up a casserole dish. "What did you tell her?"

Jane scrubbed harder. "I told her Red John couldn't hurt her and there was nothing to be scared of."

If that was all, he wouldn't be radiating tension like a thermonuclear reactor. "What did she say?" Lisbon asked neutrally.

He slowed his over-zealous scrubbing. "She asked why Red John hurt Charlotte in the first place."

"And what did you say to that?"

"I told her it was because her daddy did a lot of stupid things when he was younger," he said tightly.

Lisbon sighed. "Jane. You know that's not true."

He didn't look at her. "On the contrary. It's one thing I've known to be true all along."

Lisbon stepped towards him and kissed the place between his shoulder blades from which all that tension emanated. "No," she said gently. "I can't believe I still have to remind you of this, but what happened to your family was not your fault. It never was. McAllister was a twisted son of a bitch who chose to hurt innocent people for his own perverted reasons."

Jane released a shaky breath. "Yeah," he said morosely. "You're right."

Lisbon locked her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against that spot between his shoulder blades. "But you don't believe it."

She heard the wry, humorless smile in his voice. "My head believes it now. The rest of me…not so much."

"That's progress, I guess," she sighed, and released him.

He caught her hand and squeezed it with his soapy one. "Good thing I have you to remind me when I'm being an idiot."

"Damn straight," she agreed. She leaned against the counter. "Did Clara say anything else?"

Jane shook his head. "She had her thinking face on. She's processing it, I think. I told her she should feel free to ask me if she had any other questions."

Impulsively, she reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "She's so lucky to have you for a father."

He gave her a bashful smile and she could tell she'd surprised him. "I'm the lucky one."

"We all are," she reminded him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You're including yourself in that number?"

She kissed him again, this time on the mouth. "Every day."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: This chapter is rated M for explicit sexual content. Consider yourselves warned.

xxx

Jane and Lisbon spent an extra long time with Clara that evening at bed time, but she had another bad night. She woke up twice from nightmares. Jane and Lisbon both got up each time to soothe her together. They managed to keep her in her own bed, though, which was some measure of victory. Lisbon would take it.

Lisbon woke the next morning to find Jane nestled up behind her, his morning erection poking her in the backside. Really? After the night they'd had? Even after all these years, Jane's libido was still a mystery to her. How the man had managed to stay celibate all those years was completely baffling to her, when her own personal experience since they'd gotten together was enough to convince her that Jane was pretty much up for it any time of the day or night, any day of the week.

She shifted experimentally, trying to see if she could ease herself out of his grip without disturbing him, but all this accomplished was to wake him up.

"Mm," he murmured sleepily, pressing himself closer and sliding one hand over her hip. "Morning."

She bit her lip and glanced at the clock. Still early. And his hand felt awfully good on her hip. Well, since he was awake…

She turned over in his arms. She bit his lower lip and slid her hands inside his boxers.

"And a very good morning to you, too, my dear," he said, without opening his eyes, a smile playing about his lips as she fondled him under the covers.

"Not yet, it isn't," she whispered into his ear, then stuck her tongue inside it.

He groaned and bucked his hips against her hands.

The door banged open. Clara burst in, followed by the dog, who trotted over and leapt up on the bed, wanting to join in on the fun with two of his favorite humans. Jane and Lisbon hastily disentangled themselves from each other and braced themselves for Samson's ungainly landing on top of their legs just in time.

Clara stood at the end of the bed. "Mommy, I want to wear my purple dress to school today," she announced.

"Fine," Lisbon said, ducking to avoid Samson's expressions of affection. His morning advances were much less welcome than Jane's. "Go ahead." Anything to give her ten minutes alone with her husband. Hell, they knew each other's needs pretty well by now. She'd take five.

"Do you know where it is?" Clara said.

Lisbon closed her eyes. She already knew how this story ended. "No."

Clara put her hands on her hips. "I need you to help me find it."

"Clara, why don't you look for it by yourself?" Jane suggested helpfully. "Come back in twenty minutes." Twenty minutes? Jane was far more ambitious than she was.

Clara jutted out her chin, her jaw taking on a familiar stubborn set. "No. I need Mommy to help me."

Resigned, Lisbon slid out from under the covers and got out of bed. "Where do you last remember seeing it?"

"I don't remember."

"Helpful," Jane muttered.

Lisbon took Clara by the hand and led her back towards the bedroom door, leaving Jane with Samson to keep him warm. "Sorry," she mouthed over her shoulder to Jane as she and Clara reached the threshold. Jane, whose gaze had been firmly fixed on her ass, flicked his eyes up to meet hers and gave her a tight little nod. The dog lolled his head on Jane's chest and yawned. Jane flopped back on the pillow, defeated, and gave Samson a half-hearted rub of the ears.

"Is Daddy okay?" Cho asked Lisbon as they proceeded down the hall. "I heard him make a funny noise."

"He's fine," Lisbon assured her. Well, he would be. One of these days.

Xxx

Matters did not improve over breakfast. Jane almost burnt the pancakes, and then was distracted through the whole meal. Lisbon wondered for a moment whether he was brooding over their conversation from the previous night, but then she realized he was staring down her tank top, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. Lisbon kicked him lightly under the table. Now he was distracting her.

He blinked and recalled himself. "Sorry," he murmured as the kids squabbled over the last pancake. "Sleep deprivation has stripped away my civilized veneer. All I can think about is tearing that tank top off of you and having my way with you."

Lisbon flushed and concentrated on not leaping across the table to stick her tongue down his throat. Though she very much enjoyed Jane's gentlemanly ways in bed, Caveman Jane was possibly her favorite.

Their eyes locked and they exchanged a heated gaze across the tops of their tea and coffee mugs, respectively.

This was so not helpful. Lisbon gulped her coffee and set her mug down hastily. "I'm gonna take a shower," she said, her voice a little strangled. Possibly a cold one.

Jane jerked his head in acknowledgment. "Good idea."

She heard him chide the kids over their bickering, but she felt his eyes on her all the way down the hall.

Xxx

Lisbon had been in the shower five minutes when she felt a whoosh of cool air against her back. She half-turned her head to see a naked Jane climb into the shower with her.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked, startled.

"Not exactly the greeting I was hoping for," Jane said, wrapping his arms around her from behind and dropping his head to press a kiss to her shoulder. "But I can work with it."

"No, I just meant—what about the kids?" She inhaled sharply as he bit down gently on her shoulder, then kissed it again.

"They're watching Thomas the Train," Jane said, cupping her breasts in both hands and flicking the nipples with his thumbs. "They'll never know we're gone."

"You're letting them watch TV?" Lisbon gasped, arching her back to increase the exquisite pressure of his hands. Jane was unbelievably strict about limiting screen time for the kids. He pretty much only allowed it for special occasions. Lisbon knew that if it were up to her, she'd be much more lax about the whole thing, but Jane felt strongly about keeping their minds active and engaged and he was much more patient than she was.

Jane obligingly squeezed both breasts firmly and nipped at a place behind her ear he knew she liked. "Desperate times," he murmured into her ear. "…call for desperate measures."

"Desperate is the right word," Lisbon groaned. She wriggled against him, trying to increase all points of contact between their two bodies.

"Tell me about it," Jane agreed. He slid a hand between her legs. "Let's see what we can do about that, shall we?"

He rubbed her clit with several long, leisurely strokes of his dexterous fingers.

Lisbon groaned in frustration this time. "As much as I appreciate the thought, can we just get on with it?"

"So romantic," he said dryly, continuing to stroke her at the same maddeningly slow pace, sending long, hot curls of pleasure through her with every touch. "Relax. Thomas the Train is twenty-three minutes long. We have some time."

"Are you kidding me?" Lisbon said incredulously, squirming against him. "One of them could barge in here any minute. You need to hurry up."

He traced a lazy circle around her clit, teasing her. "What if I don't feel like hurrying?"

"Oh, my God, Jane." She placed one hand over his to keep it where it was, then widened her stance and leaned forward, bracing her forearm against the shower wall. "Quit wasting time and get inside me." She knew he was ready—he had been since he first climbed into the shower. Lord knew she was.

Jane chuckled. "Yes, ma'am." Without further ado, he slid inside her.

"Finally," she breathed in pleasure. She loved having him inside her, filling her.

Jane leaned forward and braced his own arm against the shower wall above hers. He threaded his fingers through her and continued rubbing her sex with his other hand in time to his thrusts. Lisbon felt the heat kick up, deep and low. He nibbled at her earlobe. "You miss bossing me around, don't you?" he teased.

Lisbon increased the pressure of her hand on top of his to get him to work her clit faster. Her breath came in short, staccato pants. "I wasn't aware I'd ever stopped."

She felt his grin against her neck and closed her eyes at the pleasure of having his mouth on her skin. "Touché, my dear."

"Not that you ever listened—ah!" she breathed as he thrust again. "—when you actually worked for me." She shifted against him. "You're much more biddable now."

"Am I?" he said, amused. He punctuated the question with an extra deep thrust that made her writhe against him.

"Uh-huh." Lisbon was fast reaching the place where coherent thought was a thing of distant memory.

"Well, my dear, I live to serve. What can your humble love slave do for you this fine Thursday morning?"

"I want it hard," Lisbon instructed him. She released her grip on the hand he had buried between her legs and brought her arm up so both arms were braced against the shower wall. "Now."

"Your wish is my command," Jane breathed into her ear. He sealed the bargain with another long thrust.

"Talk is cheap," Lisbon said. God, if he would just go faster—"Move." She wriggled against him again to encourage him to get a move on.

"Jesus, Teresa," Jane groaned, dragging an open-mouthed kiss along her shoulder. He thrust again involuntarily. He took his hand from the wall and squeezed her left breast desperately, his right hand still working between her legs.

"God, that feels good," Lisbon exhaled, grinding against him.

He hitched her up on his next thrust, changing the angle slightly so it felt like he was impaling her. Lisbon groaned in relief. Finally.

He curved his entire body around her. He let go of her breast and grabbed hold of her hip to steady her as he thrust again.

"Faster," Lisbon grunted, writhing against his clever fingers.

His hand was hot on her hip. He bent his head and nuzzled his way under her wet hair to plant a wet kiss along the side of her neck. "I used to think about us like this," he breathed into her ear as he thrust into her again.

Lisbon's higher brain functions were somewhat impaired by the pleasure coursing through her synapses. "When?"

He nibbled her ear. "Back at the C-B-I." He punctuated each letter of the abbreviation with another thrust and a little bite to her earlobe.

Lisbon nearly slipped in the shower. " _What?_ "

Jane caught her easily and set her to rights. He ran a hand up the back of her thigh and brought her leg up to rest on the edge of the tub. He trust himself inside her again and Lisbon saw stars. God, she was so close.

"I used to think about you like this," he repeated, returning his hand to its spot between her legs. "Just like this."

"You—you did?" Lisbon gasped, astonished. They'd been married six years, been together more than seven. And Jane had never told her this. Never so much as mentioned—never so much as _hinted_ at it.

He thrust again, a little faster this time. "I used to think about you in the shower. Especially in the CBI gym, late at night. Sometimes I would go down there after being in the attic half the night, unable to sleep. I would take a shower to try to relax. I would turn the shower as hot as it would go. And I—" Here, a longer, deeper thrust. Lisbon threw her head back and bit her lip so hard she thought she might cut herself and bleed. "I would think about you," he finished.

"Jane," she said helplessly. She reached down and gripped his thigh, her fingernails digging into the strong muscles of his leg.

He sped up his pace. "I tried not to," he gasped. "I tried to keep my mind a blank. But then I would think about how you smelled and your smile and I couldn't help it. I used to think about how your cross swung forward when you leaned over and how I knew when that happened I would have an amazing view down your shirt. And it was an amazing view, Lisbon, your breasts are spectacular. It would have been a crime not to at least admire them properly. Sometimes it was all I could do not to trace my finger along the edge of those button down shirts. But I wasn't supposed to think about things like that, so I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind and managed to keep them there, most of the time. But in the shower, I couldn't help myself sometimes. All those thoughts I kept buried during the day rose to the surface." He was pumping into her wildly, erratically at this point. The sensation of him sliding inside her, slick and hot, made bright hot lights pop behind her eyes with every thrust.

He didn't stop. He went faster. "You smelled so good, Lisbon, and your skin was so soft—you thought I didn't know that, but I did. When I thought about you like that, I could remember every single time I'd ever touched you. You were so strong, but your skin was soft and you were so warm. I wanted to bury myself in that warmth. And I thought of you like this, burying myself inside you. I knew it would be amazing and I was right, being inside you is like liquid heat. It feels so good— _you_ feel so good." He huffed a little against her shoulder as he drove them both closer to the edge. He laid his cheek against her shoulder. "God, Lisbon," he said throatily, thrusting into her faster, deeper. She felt him close his eyes. "Sometimes I wanted you so badly I thought I might die."

Lisbon came so hard she almost blacked out. She thought she might just melt into a boneless puddle at the bottom of the tub. Then Jane shifted again and he emptied himself inside her.

When he was spent, he breathed heavily against her neck, his breath coming out in short little puffs against her skin as he tried to get his breath back. She sucked in several lungfuls of air herself, and it was only after approximately the fifth one that she realized the muscles of Jane's legs were shaking. She understood. She felt a little wobbly, herself.

She turned around and kissed him. He kissed her back, both of them still trembling. She kept her mouth fused to his and guided him downward, sinking down on his lap as he collapsed and sat down on the floor of the tub. She wrapped her legs loosely around his waist and kissed him again, heedless of the wet spray surrounding them.

He kissed her back sweetly. They stayed there for several moments, recovering. Then Jane muttered into her collarbone, "I think there's a bath toy poking me in the ass."

Lisbon laughed and they helped each other up and out of the bath. Jane insisted on drying her off. She dressed while he dried himself off.

She opened the adjoining door into the bedroom, a satisfied smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

She swallowed a startled shriek when she saw Henry in the middle of the bedroom floor, quietly playing with his truck on the carpet. He looked at her curiously when she opened the door, and Lisbon fervently hoped the shower had muffled any noise she and Jane might have been making during the shower related activity. Jane always rolled his eyes when she expressed such concerns, but she happened to believe there were certain things children just didn't need to know about their parents, even if they were only two years old and too young to understand such things.

Lisbon converted her shriek into a smile. She scooped Henry up in her arms and bounced him on the bed, swooping in on him and tickling him mercilessly. She smiled widely as he giggled in delight at her silliness, his eyes bright with laughter. Her miracle baby.

Clara had been a difficult pregnancy. Lisbon had had crippling morning sickness almost the entire duration of the pregnancy and been plagued with constant exhaustion, but she'd been able to deliver her naturally in less than six hours of labor. Henry was the opposite. She'd hardly been sick at all and the pregnancy as a whole had been so much easier than it had been with Clara. By the time the due date had rolled around, she'd felt confident that everything was going to be easier this time around. Everything so far had been, and she knew what she was doing this time.

Then Henry was a week late and his labor turned out to be the single most excruciating physical ordeal of her life. She'd been in labor for over thirty-six hours, and something had gone horribly wrong. She'd never experienced pain like that. And then suddenly there were twice as many doctors and nurses in the room, an urgency in every word and movement that hadn't been there before.

She was pretty out of it by that point, so she failed to grasp the significance of what they were saying at first, but Jane was beside himself, so she made an effort to focus and caught the words 'blood loss.' Dimly, she realized they were saying she was in danger of bleeding to death. But that was ridiculous. People didn't die in childbirth anymore. At least, not ones in fancy private hospitals their completely-unconscious-of-money husbands had insisted they deliver their babies at. She was woozy and dizzy and half out of her mind with the pain, but then she saw a doctor remove a stethoscope from her swollen belly and mouth the words 'no heartbeat' and pure terror sliced through her.

Blackness closed in around the edges of her vision. She clutched at the cross around her neck with the hand not being crushed by Jane's death grip. _Please, God,_ she prayed. _Please let my baby live_.

Then she passed out.

Henry was born about half a minute later, but Lisbon missed it. Her body had gone into shock and she'd lost consciousness as a result.

The moment Henry was born, half the doctors set about getting his heart to beat and the other half rushed her off to the operating room to do what they could to make sure hers never stopped in the first place. Henry's heart started beating and he was breathing normally in under a minute, but Lisbon was in surgery for almost eight hours and she didn't wake up for another twelve after that.

When she woke, Jane was by her bedside, his eyes fixed on her with a desperate, haunted expression. After everything they'd been through together, she'd never seen him look like this.

Panic jolted her into awareness. She clutched at Jane. "Where is he?" she asked, fear clawing its way up her throat. "Jane, where's our son?"

"Shh," he said soothingly, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "He's fine. He's in the—what do you call it—the room with all the other baby bassinets."

Relief flooded her. "He's really okay?" she double-checked.

"He's as hale and hearty as any of them," he promised. "I think I heard him challenge one of the other babies to a push up contest earlier."

"Why isn't he in here with us?" Lisbon demanded.

He scraped a hand over a stubbled jaw. "Because, Teresa, they don't normally put perfectly healthy babies in the ICU."

"The ICU?" she repeated blankly.

He gestured around them. "Yes, Teresa. The ICU."

Lisbon belatedly realized she appeared to be hooked up to an alarming number of machines. "Why are we in the ICU?"

"You almost died, Teresa," he said in a strange, croaky voice. "You've been unconscious for almost twenty-four hours."

"Oh." Lisbon couldn't process this information. "Where's Clara?"

"Still with Cho and Mia. They said they'd look after her as long as we needed."

"Oh, good," Lisbon said, relieved. She squeezed Jane's hand, her mind moving to a more pressing concern.

"He's fine," Jane said softly. "I promise."

She needed to see him. "Can you bring him to me?"

He shook his head. "You're supposed to be resting."

"I need to see him, Jane," she said firmly.

He sighed and got up. "Very well. I'll send the doctors in here to check on you while I get him."

She dealt with the doctors with poorly concealed impatience, but at last they seemed satisfied she was 'recovering nicely.' Jane came back about fifteen minutes after he'd left, a small bundle cradled in his arms. He gently placed the bundle of blankets in her arms. "Here you go," he said. She relaxed as she felt the warm weight of her child in her arms. She looked down and saw her son's face for the first time. His bright blue eyes were wide open and alert, looking around him with avid curiosity. "He's beautiful," she murmured, taking one tiny fist in hers and shaking it a little.

Jane reached over and traced a fingertip over the lines of the tiny fist. "He is, at that," he said softly.

Lisbon offered the baby a breast. He latched on immediately and sucked greedily. She smiled down at him, thoroughly charmed.

"Are you sure you should be doing that?" Jane said anxiously. "What if the doctors think it's too much for you to start breastfeeding right away?"

Meh. Frauds in white coats. She cradled the baby closer. "I'd like to see them try and stop me."

"Okay," Jane said reluctantly, evidently realizing she wasn't about to be swayed on this point. "But you have to promise you'll tell me immediately if you start to feel faint or anything."

"Would you relax? It's going to be fine."

Jane was brooking no argument on this, however. "Promise me."

"Very well," she said, rolling her eyes. "I promise."

Jane relaxed and went back to playing with the baby's flailing fist. "What should we call him?"

"You didn't name him yet?" Lisbon said, surprised.

Jane shook his head. "It didn't feel right, naming him without you."

Lisbon looked down at the baby, still nursing greedily. "How about Henry?"

"Henry," Jane repeated. "I like it. Why Henry?" It wasn't one of the names they'd discussed.

Lisbon gave a half shrug without taking her eyes off her beautiful baby boy. "I don't know. He just looks like a Henry to me."

Jane leaned forward and kissed her temple. "Henry it is, then."

And so the birth certificate read 'Henry Josiah Jane.' A good strong name for their strong little boy who'd already been through so much before he was even a day old.

Xxx

Lisbon was roused from her reverie when Henry grabbed her face in the midst of the tickle attack. She looked down and smiled at him, then blew a raspberry on his belly that made him shriek with laughter.

The teachers at the daycare Jane sometimes took him to had expressed their opinion, not in so many words, they thought Henry was rather slow. He wasn't talking yet, and they took this as a sign that he was mentally deficient in some way. Henry's pediatrician had delicately suggested that the forty-seven seconds Henry had gone without breathing when he was first born might have permanently impaired his mental faculties, but Lisbon didn't believe it. The doctor and the teachers used words like 'delayed language acquisition' and 'developmental milestones.' Lisbon listened patiently and had agreed to let Henry work with a speech therapist when she realized how worried Jane was about the whole thing, but privately, she couldn't bring herself to get too worked up about the talking thing. Any time she thought about the phrase 'developmental milestone,' she looked at Henry's bright, all-seeing gaze and knew there was nothing wrong with his brain. He would talk when he was darn good and ready and not a moment before, that was all there was to it.

Jane came in and surveyed the scene on the bed with his hands on his hips. He'd re-dressed in his pajama pants, but hadn't bothered to put his shirt back on. "What's this?" he demanded in a mock serious tone. "Are you two having fun without me?" Henry blew a raspberry in his direction in response.

"Unacceptable," Jane announced, and joined in on the tickle fight.


	6. Chapter 6

"Mommy," Clara asked that night at dinner. "Can we get a puppy?"

Lisbon looked up from her wrestling match with Henry as she tried to clean the mashed carrots off his face and he tried his best to evade her. "A puppy?" she repeated. Her eyes darted to Jane in alarm, but he merely looked at Clara with interest and said nothing.

Clara nodded firmly. "Yes. A puppy."

"We already have a dog," Lisbon pointed out.

"Yes, but Samson is a grownup dog," Clara argued. "I want a puppy."

"A puppy is a lot of work, Clara," Lisbon said. "Who would train him and take care of him?"

"I would," Clara said stubbornly.

Lisbon raised her eyebrows. "Do you know how to take care of a puppy?"

"I'll learn how," Clara insisted. "I could get a book from the library."

"It's a lot of responsibility," Lisbon warned.

"I'm 'sponsible!" Clara said indignantly. "I give Samson his water when he's thirsty."

This was true, so Lisbon couldn't exactly argue the point. Still… "Taking care of a puppy is different. There's a lot more involved."

Clara pouted. "But I really want one."

Lisbon looked at Jane for help.

He cleared his throat. "Clara Bell, why don't you let your mother and I discuss this? We'll let you know once we've decided."

"Okay," Clara said, satisfied. Clearly she interpreted this as a sign her father was on her side. She probably figured if she let it alone for now, he would do the hard work and talk Mommy around.

Lisbon narrowed her eyes at Jane, who just raised his eyebrows as though to say 'What did I do?'

Lisbon sighed and returned her attention to Henry, who had just smashed a handful of peas onto the table with a satisfying 'splat.'

Xxx

"You're mad at me," Jane observed later that night when the kids were in bed and Lisbon had returned to the kitchen to finish washing the dishes.

Lisbon sighed. "No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are," he said sagely. "I've known you for eighteen years, Teresa. You think I haven't learned the signs by now?"

"I'm not mad at you," Lisbon repeated, wiping Henry's Dora the Explorer plate clean.

"You're mad at me about the puppy thing," he said, watching her.

She turned to face him and leaned against the counter. "You want to say yes, don't you?" she said, exasperated.

"Well…" Jane hedged. "I'm not completely set on no."

"Figures," she huffed.

"I didn't say yes," he reminded her. "I said we'd talk about it. So let's talk. What are your objections to the idea of getting a puppy?"

"Just what I said. A puppy is a lot of work."

"The kids and I can take care of it," he said. "Clara is really good about feeding Samson and Mr. Tigerlily. And learning to take on some extra responsibilities would be good for her."

"I guess," Lisbon said, feeling put out. Irrationally, the idea of leaving the care and feeding of a new member of the household to Jane and the children made her feel left out rather than re-assured.

"And it's not like we don't have the space," Jane went on. "The property is big enough to support a horde of livestock. One little puppy wouldn't make much difference."

"Oh, Lord," Lisbon exhaled. "Do not put any ideas in Clara's head about a miniature petting zoo."

Jane chuckled. "Even I wouldn't be so foolish. I have no desire to take care of a bunch of baby goats."

Lisbon snorted at the mental image of Jane as goatherd, amused in spite of herself.

Jane, sensing a softening, pressed his advantage. "Besides, like you said, we already have a dog. Taking care of one more isn't that much extra work."

"Twice as many vet bills," Lisbon pointed out. "Not to mention all the other expenses."

Jane shrugged. "We can afford it. So what's the real issue here? There's no real logistical reason for us not to get another dog."

Lisbon struggled to articulate her feelings on the matter. "I don't want Clara to be spoiled. Saying yes all the time just because we can isn't necessarily a good thing."

Jane's face cleared. "Ah. I see. That's why you're mad at me."

"I'm not mad," Lisbon insisted. "I'm just…frustrated, I guess."

"Okay." He inched closer to her. "What are you frustrated about?"

She bit her lip. "I feel like—you're always the fun one."

"I'm always the fun one?" Jane repeated. "What does that mean?"

"You always want to spoil them," Lisbon said. "I understand why that is, and I can't really blame you for it, but it—sometimes it makes me feel like I'm always being the stick in the mud. I'm always the one who says no."

"I'm here with them all day, Teresa," Jane pointed out. "I say no all the time."

She looked down. "I know. Never mind. I'm sorry. I'm being stupid about this."

"Hey." He stepped towards her and cupped her cheek in his hand. "You could never be stupid about anything," he said softly, looking her in the eye. He ran his hand through her hair. "And you may have a point."

She raised her eyebrows. "I do?"

He toyed with the ends of her hair. "Yes. About the whole spoiling thing." He was silent for a moment. "I just… I never want them to feel a moment's doubt about how much they are loved."

She brought her hand up to cover his. "I don't think that's possible with you as a father," she said gently.

He put his arms around her, resting his cheek against the top of her head. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, loving the warm solidity of him against her.

"Maybe we should develop a signal," Jane said at last.

"A signal?" she murmured, not moving.

"Yeah. Like a baseball signal. You could tug on your ear and I would know it's my turn to say no," he said into the top of her head.

She smiled into his chest. "I like it." She lifted her head and raised her eyes so she could search his face. "Do you really want to get another dog?"

"I think a puppy would be good for Clara," he admitted. "She's having a hard time right now. Having something else to love wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing."

Lisbon frowned. "You want to use a puppy as a distraction for all this stuff about Red John?"

He sighed. "I wouldn't put it like that. More—a different place for her to put her focus."

Lisbon remained silent. It was annoying as hell, but Jane did have a tendency to be right about this type of thing. She trusted his instincts. "All right. I'll think about it." She stepped back and took his hand. "Come on. I'm beat. Let's go to bed."

They had the bed to themselves for the whole night for the first time in weeks. Miraculously, neither of the kids woke them up in the night. Unfortunately, they didn't have a chance to take advantage of it. They were so exhausted they slept through the unexpected reprieve.

Xxx

Jane let Lisbon sleep in the next morning in honor of her day off, but the sounds of the usual breakfast routine roused her before the meal was over.

She wandered out to the kitchen in her bare feet, only to have Henry barrel into her from the side, causing her to stagger sideways to keep from losing her balance.

"Oof," she huffed, looking down to where Henry was head-butting her legs.

"He really learned that FBI take down tackle early, didn't he?" Jane commented from his position behind the counter.

Lisbon, who recognized the game, shook her head. "Nah. That wasn't an FBI move." She smiled down at Henry. "That was a triceratops move, wasn't it?"

Henry nodded and head-butted her again in confirmation.

"Hey." Lisbon picked him up and poked him gently in the stomach. "Did you learn about those triceratops moves from Cho?"

He nodded and put two fingers up next to his head to indicate horns.

"Okay, you fearsome beast," Lisbon said, tickling him. "Can you show me your gentle triceratops move?"

Henry nodded.

Lisbon leaned her head towards him. He took the cue, bumping his forehead against hers softly enough that neither the mommy nor the baby triceratops would be hurt.

Lisbon slowly moved her forehead against his in a mock triceratops battle, then pecked him on the forehead and ruffled his hair. "Okay, kiddo. What do you think about going to the science museum sometime this weekend so we can visit all the other dinosaurs?"

Henry clapped his hands in approval.

She set him down. Henry returned to his rampaging.

She went over to Clara, who was busy shoveling in her breakfast.

"Hey Clara Bell," she greeted her, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "How's your morning going?"

"Good," Clara said succinctly. "Daddy taught me a new word."

"Oh yeah? Which one?"

"Dodecahedron," Clara reported. "It's a shape with twelve sides."

"Yeah. That's one that comes up in conversation a lot," Lisbon said, rolling her eyes at Jane.

Jane shrugged unapologetically and continued his work in the kitchen.

Clara pushed her plate away. "I'm done," she announced.

Lisbon raised her eyebrows. "Is that all you have to say?"

Chastened, Clara looked over at her father. "Thank you for cooking breakfast, Daddy."

"You're welcome, Clara Bell," Jane said.

Lisbon patted her on the shoulder. "Good girl. Now, take your plate to the sink and I'll come help you pick out an outfit for the day."

"Okay," Clara said eagerly. She pushed her chair back and hastened to take her plate to the sink.

Lisbon went to the stove and said to Jane under her breath, "Dodecahedron, huh? Where do you come up with these words?"

"What have you got against dodecahedrons?"

Lisbon shook her head. "Nothing. I just don't want to get a phone call from some parent telling me their kid is crying because Clara called them a dodecahedron head." She hadn't forgotten the time when Joey Newton's mom had called to tell her off because Clara had told Joey his haircut reminded her of an echidna. Joey hadn't known what an echidna was, but he'd interpreted it as an insult. He, and consequently his mother, had been quite upset about it.

Jane chuckled. "My favorite was when she accused her pre-school teacher of being a despot for not letting her have an extra serving of chocolate pudding at snack time."

"You take my point. Maybe you could give her a little reminder about not using words as weapons?"

"At least not until she's a fancy lawyer and can charge four hundred dollars an hour for such use," Jane agreed. "I'll have a word with her about it on the way to school."

"Thanks," Lisbon said. She leaned past him and stole a bite of the sweet potato hash he was cooking on the stove top.

Jane's breathing changed. "Did I say you could have some of that?" he said mildly, sliding his hand down her hip and giving her a squeeze.

Lisbon ignored this and attempted to peer around him. "Where's my coffee?"

Jane blocked her progress and demanded a kiss as a tax on the stolen goods. "I didn't make it yet," he said, once the price had been exacted. He dipped his head to nibble her neck. "I thought you'd sleep later."

"Maybe I'm not so predictable after all," Lisbon teased him.

"I told you, you're still a mystery to me after all these years," Jane said, a teasing glint in his eyes. "I find it very mysterious that you got up this early on your day off. I was secretly hoping I'd get to wake you up. And perhaps at some point bring you breakfast in bed."

"I'm sorry to have missed out on that," Lisbon said. "Any way I can take a rain ch—"

An unexpectedly warm, wet sensation on her forearm distracted her from completing her thought.

She looked down in time to see Clara primly withdrawing her dainty tongue from the place where she'd just licked Lisbon's arm.

"Did you just…lick me?" Lisbon asked, startled.

Clara shrugged, unrepentant. "I wanted to see what you tasted like."

"Why?" Lisbon asked, perplexed.

"Some of the daddies at school said you tasted good," Clara explained matter of factly.

"Some of the daddies said I tasted good?" Lisbon repeated, bewildered.

Jane's fingers tightened on her hip. "How would they know?" he said sharply.

Clara shrugged, unconcerned. "I don't know. I heard Clarence's daddy say you were a yummy mummy, and Jackson H.'s daddy said you sure were. So I wanted to see for myself. Daddy's always putting his tongue on you, so I thought it must be true."

"Clarence's daddy, huh?" Jane muttered. "I hope he enjoys his last few hours as a man before spending the rest of his life convinced he's a duck."

Lisbon smacked him on the shoulder. "Don't even think about it," she warned.

"You're right," Jane mused. "Perhaps a squirrel would be more appropriate. Or maybe a squid."

Lisbon pinched his side where Clara couldn't see. "Which one is Clarence's daddy?"

"The tall, British one," Jane answered. "Future cephalopod."

"I've never even talked to him," Lisbon said. "I remember seeing him at drop off a couple of times, I guess."

"How did he know you were yummy, then?" Clara wanted to know.

"Wishful thinking," Jane answered. "He wanted to taste her, but it's never gonna happen." He fixed Clara with a stern look. "Daddy is the only one who gets to put his tongue on Mommy, you got that?"

"Whatever," Clara said, unimpressed.

"We've got to watch out for those other daddies," Jane said to Clara. "Because your mom is the yummiest mummy in the whole school, isn't she?"

"I don't know," Clara said dubiously. "She just tasted normal to me."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Like all those PTA moms don't spend half of all those school events drooling all over you," she said to Jane.

Clara wrinkled her nose. "The other mommies drool on Daddy? That's gross."

Lisbon cleared her throat before her daughter could get any more disturbing ideas about the activities of her classmates' parents. "Let's get you dressed, shall we, Bluebell?"

Clara needed no further encouragement. She grabbed Lisbon's hand and dragged her back to her room. Clara took fashion very seriously. Lisbon often helped her get ready, but it was rare that she could interest her tomboy mother in any details about her clothing choices other than whether her selection was weather appropriate or other such practical details. Being Jane's daughter, she wasn't one to let any opportunity for attention to go unexploited, so she made the most of her mother's uncharacteristic interest. She modeled three different outfits before her mother reminded her she didn't have time to try on the entire contents of her closet or she would be late to school. After extracting an assurance from Lisbon that she was sure her sequined green skirt went perfectly fine with rainbow tights, she finally managed to make up her mind and get dressed.

At her request, Lisbon inexpertly braided her hair and secured it with the sparkly silver scrunchy Clara had selected for the occasion. When she finished, Lisbon eyed her handiwork critically. Jane was the resident hairdresser in the household. He would have done the job more neatly, she knew, but Clara seemed satisfied, so Lisbon decided it wasn't worth taking the time to redo it.

Clara stood up and yawned. Lisbon watched her closely. "Did you sleep better last night, Bluebell?"

Clara hesitated. "Uh-huh," she said at last.

Lisbon frowned. She ducked her head to get Clara to look her in the eye. "Really, truly?" she asked softly.

Clara bit her lip. Lisbon could see conflict waging behind those bright green eyes.

Lisbon put her hand on Clara's arm. "Hey. You can tell me. Families help each other, remember?"

"I woke up," Clara confessed. "I had a bad dream."

Lisbon's heart sank. So much for a peaceful night. "How come you didn't come get me or Daddy?"

"I was trying to be brave," Clara said in a small voice.

"Oh, honey." Lisbon put her arms around her. "You don't have to be brave all by yourself. It's okay to ask for help. You know that, right?"

"I guess," Clara said into her shoulder uncertainly.

"Hey." Lisbon drew back and looked her in the eye. "I already know you're brave, okay? You don't have to prove anything to me. Or Daddy. We already know how brave you are."

Clara gave a barely audible sniff. "Really?"

"Really. You know what else?"

Clara looked back at her, her eyes troubled. "What?"

"Sometimes asking for help is the bravest thing you can do."

Clara's brow crinkled in confusion. "It is?"

"Sure. Asking for help when you're nervous about it is part of facing your fears. And that's what being brave is all about, remember?"

Clara brightened. "Yeah."

Lisbon squeezed her hand. "Listen. What do you say about having a little mother-daughter bonding time this afternoon? Just you and me."

"Don't you have to go to work?" Clara said, her eyes wide.

"Nope. I took the day off so I could hang out with you when you're done with school."

"Really?" Clara said, pleased.

"Really. I take it that means you're okay with the idea?"

"Yeah!"

"Great. I'll be looking forward to it."

Lisbon helped Clara pack her backpack, and then the two of them rejoined Henry and Jane in the kitchen.

"All set?" Jane asked Clara.

"Ready," Clara confirmed. She bounced up and down a little on her toes in a manner that forcibly reminded Lisbon of Jane when he was excited about something. "Daddy, guess what? Mommy took the day off work so she can hang out with me!"

"I heard something about that," Jane remarked. "I think we're all going to get a little extra Mommy time today."

Henry tugged on the hem of Jane's shirt and looked up at him questioningly.

"Yep, you too," Jane said, fondly stroking the curls on the crown of his head.

Henry hopped up and down to indicate his approval.

"You guys all look ready to go," Lisbon observed. "I'd better get dressed."

"What?" Jane said, looking crestfallen. "Why?"

Lisbon blinked. "I thought I'd come with you to take Clara to school."

The kids expressed their enthusiasm for this idea, but Jane said firmly, "I'll take Clara to school and then drop Henry off at day care. You stay here."

"Excuse me?" Lisbon said indignantly. He didn't just get to tell her to stay put like… like a misbehaved puppy. And since when had he decided that Henry was going to day care this morning without consulting her? Henry usually stayed home with Jane unless Jane had errands to run or an appointment or something. Jane had charmed the daycare near Clara's school into agreeing to a special arrangement where they let him bring Henry there on an as needed basis. All the other kids in the day care program were there pretty much full time, but all Jane had to do was flash his dazzling smile at the group of women who ran the place and of course they fell all over themselves to grant him an exception.

Jane held the car keys out to Clara. "Do you think you guys can get yourselves buckled in safely before I get out there? I need to talk to Mommy for a minute."

"Okay," Clara said eagerly. She was always keen to prove how grown up she was, so any opportunity to be entrusted with a task normally reserved for grownups was generally greeted with enthusiasm. She snatched the keys from Jane's hand and pulled Henry along by the arm towards the door. "C'mon, Henry," she said bossily. "I'll help you."

"Be careful!" Lisbon called after them.

"They're fine," Jane said. "It'll just be a minute."

Lisbon put her hands on her hips. "And just what is so important that you needed to banish our children to talk to me?"

Jane didn't answer. He just advanced upon her and gathered her in his arms. He wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him, and buried his other hand in her hair. He drew her to him and pressed himself to her, kissing her as greedily as though he was taking a long draught from the sweetest well on earth.

She clutched at him to help her keep her balance as Jane pressed her backwards. God, how was it possible that even after all this time, all he had to do was touch her and he could to turn her on like lighting a match? She brought her hands up to his face and kissed him back.

He moved his lips to her neck and bit her at a spot just below her ear. "I have plans for you," he said, his voice low and hot and everywhere. He plucked at the strap of her tank top, then pressed a kiss to the spot where the elastic snapped back to her skin. "They involve you being in this tank top and those shorts until I take them off you." His heat-roughened voice vibrated against her skin and sent sparks of heat coursing through her body from head to toe.

He kissed her again. "I'll be back in half an hour." He squeezed her ass and winked. "Don't dress."

"Okay," Lisbon managed, and then he was gone.

Great. Now she wasn't going to be able to think about anything but Jane's hot hands and hot mouth for the next half an hour.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: This chapter is rated M for explicit sexual content. If that's not your cup of tea, you're probably better off skipping the whole chapter. I started off intending this to be a nice, family friendly fic, I swear. Then this happened.

xxxxx

She distracted herself with breakfast while he was gone. She figured fortification was in order, since she anticipated expending a significant amount of energy throughout the rest of the morning. She was really looking forward to it.

Jane made it back in twenty-seven minutes. He burst back into the house before she finished her toast with strawberry preserves, homemade by Jane with strawberries from his garden.

"Oh, good," he said, sounding relieved and a little out of breath. "You're not dressed."

"Did you run from the car?" she asked, amused.

"Maybe," he said, dropping his keys on the table by the door.

"Okay." Lisbon stood up, brushing crumbs from her lap. "Let's go."

Jane gaped at her for a second, then started to laugh.

Lisbon raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

He gestured back and forth between the two of them. "We are. This is the first time we've had to ourselves in ages. I should be wining and dining you. And here I am, not even letting you finish your breakfast before hustling you off to bed."

"I don't mind," Lisbon protested. "I want to."

He crossed the room and kissed the top of her head. "Finish your breakfast," he murmured into her hair. He smirked. "You're going to need your strength."

Lisbon sighed. She knew from long experience that when Jane took a romantic notion like this into his head, he would be immovable on the matter, regardless of what she had to say about it. She sat back down and resentfully took another bite of toast.

Jane sat down in the chair next to her. He studied her, then reached out and took her hand. "Hey," he said, stroking her hand. "Slow down. We've got time, remember?"

"Time we could be spending on more important things than toast," Lisbon grumbled.

Jane sat back, his eyes crinkling with a smile. "Well, this won't do. I wanted to impress you with my chivalry and romantic nature, and I've only succeeded in annoying you."

It was Lisbon's turn to smirk. "Your chivalry isn't the part of you I'm primarily interested in at the moment."

He patted her hand. "All in due time, my dear."

Lisbon finished her toast and pushed her plate away. "I'm done," she announced. She looked at Jane. "Can we please have sex now?"

"Spoken like a true romantic," he said dryly.

"Well?" she demanded. "Are you going to get a move on, or what?"

He kissed her palm. "I suggest a compromise."

"What kind of compromise?" Lisbon asked suspiciously.

"I propose we make out on the couch like teenagers," Jane said.

"Fine," Lisbon agreed. Once they got going on the couch, it would only be a matter of time before she got what she wanted anyway.

"We could make a game of it," Jane continued.

Lisbon tried to decide if playing a game with Jane was more likely to be fun or infuriating. It was very difficult to tell sometimes. "What kind of game?"

"For each touch or kiss one of us takes, that person has to say one thing they are grateful for."

Lisbon considered this. It sounded harmless enough. "Okay," she agreed. Anything to get him where she wanted him.

"Excellent." Jane pulled her over to the couch by the hand.

"Why the couch?" Lisbon asked out of curiosity.

"Think of it like an appetizer," Jane said. "I know you. If we start in the bedroom, you'll want to skip ahead to the main course."

"What's so bad about that?" Lisbon huffed. "Yesterday morning aside, we've practically been on a starvation diet."

"That, my dear, is precisely my point," Jane said. He pressed a series of soft, sweet kisses to her lips. "This is our first full course meal in quite some time. It shouldn't be rushed. I want us to…(kiss)…savor…(kiss)…every…(kiss)…moment." He patted her on the butt for good measure and stepped back. "Now, are you playing or not?"

Lisbon sighed. "Fine."

"Good." Jane sat down and grinned up at her. He patted the seat next to him.

She rolled her eyes and sat down.

"I'll go first," he said, gazing at her hungrily.

Oh, Lord. If he kept looking at her like that, this game wasn't going to last long. She'd end up pushing him down and ravishing him, gratitude and romanticism be damned. She licked her lips. "Okay."

"I'm grateful that you took the day off today," Jane said, pressing another sweet kiss to her mouth.

Lisbon responded automatically. She brought her hand up to cup his cheek and kiss him back, but Jane drew back. "Ah, ah," he said, shaking his head. "You're forgetting the rules." He smirked at her again. "Now, tell me, Teresa. What are you grateful for?"

Though she'd been expecting it, the question brought her up short. What was she grateful for? A thousand images rushed to mind. Of Jane, and their life together. "I'm grateful you climbed a fence and conned your way onto an airplane for me," she said at last.

Jane's expression softened. "Aw, Lisbon. That's a very sweet thing to say. I'm glad to see you're getting into the romantic spirit of the thing."

Lisbon shut him up with another kiss, taking the opportunity to bury her fingers in his golden curls to hold him to her.

"Mm," Jane hummed in appreciation. "Very nice. I think that counts as two, though. One for the kiss, one for the hair. You owe me one more."

Lisbon groaned in frustration. "Fine. I'm also grateful I wasn't stupid enough to stay on that plane after you told me you loved me." She almost had been. She felt cold at the thought. How close she had been to missing out on this life because of her own stupid pride and hurt and anger.

"I'm grateful you were willing to give me yet another chance when I didn't deserve it," Jane said, his voice low and rough. He claimed his share by running his fingers gently through her hair from scalp to tip.

Lisbon closed her eyes against the sensation. She blindly reached out and placed her hand over his heart. "I'm grateful you're happy." There had been so many times over the years she'd feared he would never permit himself that luxury again.

"Oh, my darling Teresa." He kissed each closed eyelid in turn. "There was never any chance that I could be otherwise, once I was with you."

"That's two," she reminded him, eyes still closed.

Jane stole another kiss, pressing his lips to her temple. "So it is. Very well. I am grateful for your kind heart and your incredible patience with me. And I am grateful for every single smile you have ever given me."

This comment elicited one of the treasured smiles. She found his mouth with hers again. "I'm grateful for your smiles, too," she murmured against his mouth.

Jane nuzzled her neck. "I'm grateful for your strength."

Lisbon clutched his arm, gasping a little as he lavished attention on her neck. "I'm grateful for your attention to detail."

He chuckled into her neck, which felt amazing. "I'm grateful for how sensitive your neck is."

"I'm grateful for how thoughtful you are," Lisbon said, sliding her hand up to toy with his curls again. "I'm grateful for how you go out of your way to find a thousand little things to do to please me." She kissed his throat to return the favor.

"Ungh," he said, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. "I'm grateful for your mouth," he said with feeling, running a hand up her side.

She flicked her tongue in the hollow of his throat and smiled against his skin. "Ditto." She dropped another kiss against the same place. "I'm grateful that you gave me two beautiful children." She trailed kisses down his collarbone. "I'm so grateful for how you take care of them, and of me." She licked the hollow between his collarbone and his straining shoulder, strung with tension, and bit down softly. "I love how I never have to worry about them when they're with you, because I know in the bottom of my heart that you'd do absolutely anything to protect them."

Jane let out a shuddering little breath and shivered under her tongue. "I'm so grateful you're their mom. That you play with them and care for them just the way they need, but you don't let me spoil them, so they'll grow up to be good, honest people like you."

"And I'm grateful that they will never want for anything, because their father is the most generous person I know," she whispered into his shoulder, trailing a hand down his chest.

Jane shook his head and drew her head back to give her a long, lingering kiss. "I am so damn lucky to have you," he said, his voice hoarse. "I don't think there will ever be enough words to express exactly how grateful I am that you consented to share your life with me."

"I feel the same way," she assured him, kissing him back.

"Well, that's lucky," he panted, going for her mouth again.

The rules were bent for a moment as they focused on expressing their gratitude for each other through an exchange of lengthy, heartfelt kisses.

The next thing Lisbon knew, she was on Jane's lap with no clear recollection of how exactly she'd gotten there. Perched sideways on his lap with her legs stretched out on the couch in front of her, she shifted a little to get her balance. Jane obligingly held her closer without removing his mouth from hers.

"I'm grateful for your legs," he murmured, sliding his hand up her thigh.

"I'm grateful for your hands," Lisbon panted, covering his hand with her own and sliding it higher on her leg.

He bent her half back over his arm and kissed her between her breasts. "I'm also grateful for the person who invented tank tops."

Lisbon was still grateful for his hands. He slid the one on her thigh further up still and squeezed her ass. She wriggled a little on his lap, desperate to ease the throbbing ache between her legs.

Jane groaned. "Bed. Now."

"Thank God," Lisbon breathed, straightening. She levered herself off his lap and pulled him up after her. She dragged him towards the bedroom, nearly tripping over the cat in her haste. They shut the door to ensure they wouldn't be interrupted by the four-legged members of the household, now that they'd gotten rid of the kids.

She assumed Jane had gotten his fill of sensual torture on the couch and would be ready to move on to the main event when they got to the bedroom, but it turned out he had other ideas.

He tipped her back on the bed, assaulting her mouth with more long, leisurely kisses. He ran his hand through her hair reverently. "I love you," he murmured.

"I love you, too," Lisbon said, squirming beneath him and thinking hot thoughts. She loved the warm, heavy weight of him on top of her. Now all she had to do was get him inside her. She managed to get his pants off. Then she reached for his erection with both hands, dipping her hands inside his boxers and running her thumbs along the underside of his cock.

He reared back and bit his lip, clearly fighting for control. "Ah—not so fast, my dear."

Lisbon groaned. "Are you kidding me? If we move any slower, the kids will have graduated high school by the time we're done."

Jane straightened so he was kneeling with his legs on either side of her hips and pulled off his t-shirt. Lisbon bit her lip and stared at him kneeling above her. He looked so funny kneeling there with his cock poking out of his boxers. How could she find that sight so amusing and arousing at the exact same time?

Jane tossed the t-shirt aside and bent to reclaim her mouth. "I told you," he said between kisses. "I want us to savor this."

She ran her hand over his naked back, enjoying the play of muscle beneath her fingertips. "I'll try to be more patient," she promised, though every cell in her body vehemently opposed the idea.

He smiled down at her. "Thank you for indulging me."

She kissed him. "You're worth it."

He grinned against her mouth. "I certainly intend to reward your patience by making the wait worth your while." He skimmed his hand down her side, his long fingers blazing hot trails through the thin fabric of her tank top.

"You always do," Lisbon panted, clutching more tightly at his back.

He lifted the hem of her tank top and pressed a kiss to the soft swell of her belly. He inched the tank top upwards, his mouth following his fingers. Lisbon's breath came in short pants as he worked his way up her body. He peeled the tank top off, then returned his attention to her breasts. "Mm," he murmured, swirling his tongue around one taut nipple. He bit down gently and flicked the tip with his tongue. "Clarence's daddy was right. You're very yummy."

Lisbon was startled into a laugh, rousing her somewhat from her lust-soaked haze. "Seriously?"

Jane closed his lips around the nipple of the other breast and teased it with his tongue. "The yummiest," he said into her breast, unperturbed. He slid his hands down her body and peeled her shorts and underwear off.

"I get it," Lisbon said, arching her back and holding his head to her breast, needing more of his mouth. "This isn't about 'savoring the moment.' You're just marking your territory."

He ran both hands up her legs and pressed an open mouthed kiss to one hip. He looked up at her with dark, hooded eyes. "First of all," he said, settling his hands on her hips and stroking the sensitive line where hip met thigh with his thumbs, making Lisbon flinch with pleasure at the sensation. "There's no 'just' about it. You're my wife. I don't want anyone else thinking about how yummy you are." He punctuated this remark with a kiss to the inside of each thigh. "Secondly, you happen to be my favorite treat." He lowered his head, nuzzling his nose against her sex. "As such, I intend to savor every moment of this." And he licked inside her.

"Oh— _God_." Lisbon nearly threw him off her with the force of her movement when her hips bucked involuntarily against him. Fortunately, Jane was prepared. He held one hip in place with his hand, continuing to stroke there with his thumb, and hitched the other leg over his shoulder, widening the angle of her thighs and diminishing her leverage at the same time.

Lisbon's eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she closed her eyes against the pure mindless pleasure of Jane licking her with long, leisurely strokes of his tongue, teasing her clit at the end of each one.

"Jane," she gasped, twisting the sheets in clenched fists.

"You're mine," he said when he paused for air. He swirled his tongue around her clit like he was eating a soft serve ice cream cone. "I'm the only one who gets to taste you," he emphasized, nuzzling his way down her sex. "Only me." He brought his right hand up to rub her clit with his thumb.

"Jesu—oh! _God_." Lisbon writhed against the sheets, frantic with pleasure.

He withdrew his tongue, panting a little. "Say you're mine," he demanded.

Lisbon grabbed him by the hair and attempted to guide his head back down. "Please, Jane."

He resisted. "Say it."

"I'm yours," she gasped. "I've been yours forever, you idiot."

Jane smiled into her thigh, then tilted his head and pushed his tongue inside her. He increased the pressure of his thumb on her clit, rubbing it in firm, gentle circles. He increased the pressure of his tongue, flicking upwards.

"Oh, my God," Lisbon moaned. "How are you even _doing_ that with your tongue?"

He chuckled against her, sending delicious vibrations shooting through her, then switched the placement of his mouth and hand. He slipped two fingers inside her, curving gently back towards himself and moving slowly against the sensitive flesh. He kissed the inside of her thigh once more. "I love the way you taste," he said, licking her like an ice cream cone yet again, still working his fingers inside her. "You taste so good, Teresa. I'll never get tired of that taste, not if I live a hundred more years." He touched his tongue to her clit again. "Come for me, Teresa. I want to taste you when you come." And he zeroed in on her clit with the pressure she needed, working his tongue firmly, surely, as though he knew exactly what she needed and he _did_ , because he knew everything about her, he always had, even when she didn't want him to, and now it was different because they'd been together so long and he knew every inch of her body even better than she did and he knew _exactly_ how to make her mindless with pleasure and how to give her things she didn't even know she needed or wanted because he was _Jane_ and he was her husband and she loved him _so much—_

She came apart. The orgasm crashed over her like a tidal wave, the intensity of it overwhelming. Jane prolonged it, drawing it out with every bit of masterful skill he possessed.

Lisbon sucked in several heaving lungfuls of air when she started to come to her senses again. She felt blank with pleasure, her entire body limp and sated.

Jane kissed the inside of her thigh again, this time to soothe rather than to entice. "All right there, love?"

"Yeah," Lisbon gasped. "Jesus. You really outdid yourself there, Jane."

He crawled up her body and kissed her shoulder. "I aim to please."

"You should start a correspondence course," Lisbon told him. "To teach other guys how to do that."

Jane made a face. "Why would I want to teach someone else how to do that?"

"I don't know. On behalf of womankind, it just seems a little selfish to keep that kind of talent all to myself."

He kissed her hair. "I'm afraid there's only one element of womankind I'm interested in sharing that talent with."

"Well, I'm grateful for your talent," Lisbon said with feeling. Jane laughed.

Lisbon turned to kiss him and felt his hard on press against her leg. "Oh, yeah," she remembered.

Jane tried to look offended, but really just looked like he was trying to hold back laughter. "Just what a guy wants to hear," he teased.

"Sorry," Lisbon said. "You turned my brain to mush."

"Do you need a moment to recover?" Jane asked, amused.

Lisbon considered. "No," she decided. "I'm good. Go ahead."

Jane rolled his eyes. "Just when I think there's hope of turning you into a romantic, you go and say something like that."

"You don't seem too bothered about it," Lisbon commented, running her finger lightly over his undiminished erection.

"Ah—" he choked out as she wrapped her fingers around his cock and gave it an experimental pump. "It's—uhhh—something I've learned to live with."

"You've grown very adaptable in your old age," Lisbon complimented him, rubbing her thumb on the underside of his cock.

Jane scowled. "Okay, no old jokes when you're touching me like that."

She leaned over and nibbled his earlobe. "What can I do to make it up to you?"

"I can think of a few things," he said, and pulled her on top of him.

Lisbon grinned. "My turn to be in charge."

He lay back on the pillows and shot her a wolfish grin. "I always did like Special Agent in Charge Teresa Lisbon."

"Oh, yeah?" she said, kissing his neck. "What did you like about her?"

"Well…" he leaned up and kissed her, a gentle exploration of her mouth. "She was smart… and beautiful…extraordinarily kind…" He tilted his head and kissed her neck, mirroring the place she'd just kissed him. "…and she never let me get away with any crap."

She bit his bottom lip. "Some would say she let you get away with far too much of your crap."

"Meh," Jane said, running his fingers down her spine. "Not on the important stuff." He ducked his head and kissed her between her breasts. "That's another thing I'm grateful for."

"Sweet talker," Lisbon said, running her hands through his hair, luxuriating in the sensation of the soft golden curls beneath her fingertips.

He clutched her to him, drawing her hips closer to his and moving against her with more urgency. Figuring they were both well past ready, Lisbon reached over to the nightstand to grab a condom. Jane reached up and caught a nipple in his mouth, drawing a wet circle around it with his tongue.

Lisbon hummed her appreciation and applied herself to the task of getting the condom on him as quickly as possible. Then she impaled herself on him and they both groaned in satisfaction.

Jane's earlier ministrations had curbed some of the urgency she'd felt when they'd started, so Lisbon set a slow, leisurely pace to begin with. She knew Jane enjoyed prolonging the time of their joining longer than she normally had patience for. Usually he got her worked up so quickly that she was desperate to get to the finish line when in his mind they were just getting started. This did have its advantages, however, since Jane seemed to consider it a point of pride that he routinely made her come twice for every one of his own orgasms. Which obviously she was not going to complain about. She did take great satisfaction whenever she managed to break his vaunted self-control, though.

Now, she twined her fingers in his and rocked on top of him, slow and steady.

Jane gripped her hands and flexed his hips, driving himself up higher inside her with every slow, deliberate thrust.

"Ohhh…" she groaned. "You don't play fair."

"You know me." He pulled her down for a kiss. "I'm always going to lie… and cheat… and steal to get to where I want to be."

"I'm trying to do something nice for you," she complained.

He had to smile at this. "You do lots of nice things for me."

"Oh, yeah?" she panted. "Like what?"

"Well… you're naked and on top of me. I think that's pretty nice."

"I did bring you home tacos from that truck on Juarez the other day," she reminded him.

"Yeah… you know how much… I love…tacos," he grunted as she rocked and twisted at the same time.

"I…do…know," she agreed, her breath coming in shorter bursts as she sped up her pace.

He traced his fingers down her ribs, and gazed up at her, his eyes soft and dark. "I love watching you," he said, skimming his hands up her sides again. He leaned up to kiss her, wrapping his arms around her. "I love seeing you like this," he whispered, running his hands down her back. His fingers played along the curve of her spine. He pressed a kiss to her collarbone. "I love feeling you like this."

She bit his neck, then tongued over the place where she'd marked him. "I love feeling you, too."

"Teresa," he gasped, clutching her hips.

She leaned back and placed her hands on his thighs behind her, arching her back as she continued to ride him. Her breasts jutted upward with each movement. Jane's jaw went slack.

"Good God," he said, his eyes wide. He held her hips to his and strained forward, reaching greedily for a breast. His mouth closed over one nipple and he sucked, hard. Lisbon cried out.

His thighs trembled beneath her hands. His hands clutched at her hips desperately, his own hips jerking in tight, uncontrolled thrusts as she drove him closer to the edge.

She continued to move against him like that until she could tell he was close to the breaking point. His breath came in short, stuttering breaths.

"Teresa, please—" he gasped out.

She squeezed his thighs, then sat up a little. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Shh. I've got you," she soothed.

She arched her back and jerked against him.

"Teresa," he gasped, clutching her tighter.

She kissed his neck at the same spot where she'd bitten him earlier. "I've got you," she repeated, looking down at his face affectionately as she rocked him closer to climax.

His eyelids fluttered. His lips parted in half-formed ecstasy. "Teresa."

Cords of tension stood out on his neck. She rocked a little faster.

He tensed beneath her. "Teresa. I need—"

"Yeah," Lisbon breathed. She shifted closer to him and picked up the pace in earnest. She laid her cheek against his neck and pressed her breasts against his chest as she pushed closer to him, savoring the exquisite friction of their two bodies moving against one another. "I love you so much," she whispered in his ear, stroking the curls at the back of his neck as she rocked against him, and the heat was like a low buzz, an electric current pulsing through her whole body.

Jane jerked wildly under her. His fingers desperately sought the place where their bodies joined and his thumb found her clit again, and then the current kicked up several volts and she arched her back and came again as he spasmed under her, reaching his own release at last.

"Well," Jane said a moment later, his voice muffled as he spoke into her chest. "I guess that wasn't too bad for boring married people having sex in a bed."

She laughed. She eased herself off him and flopped down on the bed beside him. "Hey, I was ready to go on the couch. You were the one who wanted to be all traditional about it."

"Tradition had nothing to do with it," Jane said, getting up and disposing of the condom. "I just needed a…broader canvas, for what I had in mind."

"Well, far be it for me to stifle your artistic sensibilities," Lisbon teased him. "I for one have a great appreciation for your creative instincts."

He climbed back in bed and snuggled up to her. "So," he said expectantly. "Are you having a good morning off so far?"

Hm. Two mind-bending orgasms before nine-thirty and naked, snuggly Jane in her bed wanting to cuddle. That was a tough one. "I suppose it's been reasonably entertaining so far," she said in a carefully neutral voice, her mouth curving into a satisfied smile. "It beats paperwork, I guess."

He bit her shoulder softly in retaliation. "I thought you were going to be nice to me."

"I was already nice to you," Lisbon pointed out. "Remember?"

He kissed a freckle on her shoulder. "Vividly."

They kissed for a few minutes, enjoying the closeness. When they broke apart, Lisbon laid her head on Jane's shoulder and traced her fingers idly over his chest. Jane hummed his appreciation and stroked her hair, holding her close.

"This is nice," he commented.

"Mm," Lisbon murmured in agreement.

"I can't believe how long it's been."

"It's been since yesterday," Lisbon pointed out.

"No, I mean, since we got to spend proper time together." He gave her an extra squeeze to emphasize his point.

"Ah," Lisbon said. "True."

"Maybe we could go out of town for a weekend sometime soon," he suggested. "Just the two of us. I could get you some mints for your pillow."

"What about the kids?"

He shrugged. "We'll ask Cho or Wiley to watch them."

"I doubt they're going to want to give up one of their weekends off to watch our two little terrors," Lisbon said dubiously. "Babysitting two smaller versions of you is not exactly the most relaxing prospect."

"Fine, then, we'll get a sitter."

"Really?" she said skeptically. "Last time we got a sitter just for the evening, you were a wreck with nerves the whole time because you didn't think the poor girl had adequate security training."

"Well, she was very young."

"She was twenty-three years old."

"She _didn't_ have adequate security training."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "I'll ask Cho. Maybe he and Mia would like the opportunity to have a practice run. See what they're getting into."

He gave her another squeeze. "Excellent idea."

"I try."

They stayed in bed the whole morning. They made love again once more, then lay cuddled up together, talking and teasing and mutually agreeing that wherever he was, Clarence's daddy was almost assuredly not having a morning half as good as they were.

They made out like teenagers again. Jane pressed her back against the mattress and showered her with kisses all over her body.

She traced a finger along the line of his jaw. "Jane?"

He paused in his ministrations. "Yeah?"

She kissed him back. "I'm having a really, really good morning."

His smile lit the room. "Me, too."

She smiled up at him, happy and warm and so, so glad she had taken the day off.

He looked down at her, his eyes so full of love and affection she caught her breath again at how lucky she was.

He brought his hand up to trace his fingertips along her collarbone. "How is it possible that you get more beautiful every year?" he said wonderingly.

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Right. Because crow's feet are so attractive."

"I'm serious," he insisted. "You have literally gotten more and more beautiful every year that I've known you." He didn't take his eyes off her. "When we're eighty, looking at you is going to be like staring into the sun."

"Fond husband," she said affectionately. "Maybe your eyesight is just going."

"Says the woman universally admired as the yummiest mummy at the whole school."

She groaned. "Oh, my God. You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"Is it my fault my wife is the most breathtakingly beautiful woman on the planet?"

She cupped his cheek in her hand. "You're really pretty good at this romance thing, anybody ever tell you that?"

He kissed her again. "I try."

They lay together in contented silence. Lisbon resumed tracing her fingers over Jane's chest. Her mind wandered, relishing the satisfaction of the morning and reflecting on all the moments they'd shared over the years.

A question flitted across her mind. Her fingers slowed.

"What is it?" Jane said lazily, his own fingers busy playing with the ends of her hair.

Lisbon hesitated. "Did you—did you mean what you said yesterday? In the shower, I mean?"

He cracked one eye open. "What did I say?" he teased. "I was pretty hyped up."

She dealt him a vicious pinch in the side.

"Okay, okay, sorry. Now, what were you asking me about?"

"Did you really think about me—like that?" she asked haltingly. "Back then, I mean."

His fingers stilled in her hair. "Of course I did," he said quietly. "How could I not?"

"Oh," Lisbon said stupidly. She was quiet for a moment. "You never… I mean, you've never…"

His arm tightened around her. "I was ashamed," he confessed.

The word surprised her. "Ashamed?"

"I wasn't supposed to think of you like that," he said.

She bit her lip. "You weren't?"

"You were a woman I worked with, one I respected and admired. You were a friend I valued more than anyone else on the planet. And I knew nothing could ever come of it, so it felt wrong to think about you like that while I was doing…that."

She shifted against him. "You knew nothing could ever come of it?"

"I thought I did," he said ruefully. "At the time."

She drew up her courage. "Because…because of Angela?"

He traced his fingers down her spine again. "Not the way you mean. I just thought I could never offer myself to anyone that way again. Most of the time I felt…paralyzed. I was terrified of Red John going after you to get to me. More often than you know, I felt this sort of weary horror that we would never catch him. Even when I buckled down on my resolve to find him, I was convinced that even if we did catch him, once it was all over, I wouldn't have anything left to give you. That I'd just be an empty husk. You know how I was back then. Catching him was the edge of the horizon. I couldn't see anything beyond that point. So I tried not to think of you. But every time I tried to distance myself from you, I found some excuse to finagle my way back to your side, closer than ever." He nuzzled her hair, seeking comfort in the familiar scent. "As with so many things relating to you, it seemed I just couldn't help myself."

"Hm," Lisbon said, turning this information over in her mind. God, they'd both been hopeless back then.

"What about you?" Jane prompted.

She hesitated. "What about me?"

She felt him smile into her hair. Without looking up at him, she could tell it was his most wicked one. "Did you ever think of me like that? Back then?"

As usual, her body betrayed her. She felt her skin heat up. This was ridiculous. They'd been together seven years. She'd given birth to his children. Let him do unspeakable things to her body. It was completely absurd to be embarrassed about this. "I'll take the fifth," she muttered into his shoulder.

Jane chuckled. "How about we strike a deal? I'll tell you about my shower fantasies if you tell me yours."

Now there was an intriguing offer. "I—"

But then Jane sat bolt upright, letting her fall back against the pillows unceremoniously. "Oh, my God," he said, panicked. "The shower."

"Is this some kind of negotiation tactic to manipulate me into taking another shower with you?" Lisbon said, her voice muffled by the pillows. "Because if it is, your technique needs work."

"No," Jane said, rigid with tension. "Yesterday. I forgot about protection when we were in the shower yesterday."

Oh, crap. She'd forgotten all about it, too. She'd been having trouble with her IUD, so her doctor had recommended that she go without it for a few months. She and Jane had been making do with condoms in the interim, but apparently the need for them had slipped both their minds in their frantic state in the shower yesterday. Great. Now Jane was going to freak out utterly and completely about this. Lisbon sighed. "Jane, it's no big deal—"

He turned to her, eyes blazing. "It absolutely is a big deal, Teresa. You weren't there in that hospital. You don't know what it was like."

"I was, actually," she reminded him gently.

"You were unconscious," he said harshly. "For twenty-four hours. I didn't know if you were ever going to wake up again."

Lisbon sat up and stroked his back. "Okay, calm down. You're probably worrying over nothing."

He exhaled in an unsuccessful attempt to bring himself under control. "God. I never should have let you talk me out of getting that vasectomy," he said bitterly.

Lisbon was silent. The day after Henry had been born, Jane had come into her hospital room. Pale and grave, he'd calmly informed her that he'd scheduled a vasectomy for later that afternoon. Lisbon tried reasoning with him, telling him there was no need for such drastic action, but he remained obstinately set on his course. Still exhausted and overwhelmed from her long ordeal, she grew so upset that the various machines and monitors still attached to her started to go haywire. Only then did he finally capitulate and agree not to take any irreversible steps until they'd both calmed down a bit. Later, Lisbon had gone on the IUD and she'd persuaded Jane the vasectomy was unnecessary. It wasn't like they'd planned on having any more kids after Henry, but she found she couldn't abide the thought of the option being taken away from her summarily.

Jane raked a hand through his hair, his voice full of despair. "I don't suppose you'd consider taking a morning after pill, would you?"

She drew back instinctively. "What? No!"

He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

She scooted closer to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Jane. You're overreacting. I'm not exactly getting any younger, you know. My eggs are probably all shriveled up from age and disuse. I'm unlikely to get pregnant again without the aid of modern science, at my age."

"That's what we thought when we were trying for Henry," Jane said, unmollified. "And then you turned out to be some kind of Celtic fertility goddess!"

She tried another tack. "Okay, let's say it happened. Would it be so bad, having another child?" She thought of the sweet smell of babies' heads, the warm weight of her children sleeping on her chest. Some of the best memories of her life had come from those tiny moments.

"Of course not," he said, frustrated. "It's the pregnancy that scares me." He turned to look at her, his eyes desperate. "We're okay as we are, aren't we? Isn't our little family enough?"

She kissed his shoulder. "Of course it is," she said softly. "It's perfect."

He clutched her hand. "I just—I can't go through that again. I can't risk you like that."

She was silent for a moment. Despite how long she'd known him, sometimes she forgot how fragile Jane truly was. "What about the sit ups?" she asked finally.

He shook his head. "It's different. Subjecting you to another pregnancy—it's so…avoidable." His jaw clenched again. "At least, it would be if I was thinking straight. If I wasn't so damned careless. You'd think I'd have learned to cure myself of that particular trait by this point."

She thought she understood part of the problem, now. Dealing with something happening to her in the line of duty would be devastating, but he would manage for the sake of the kids, as long as he didn't have the crushing weight of guilt crippling him. A pregnancy gone awry, however… of course Jane, with his misguided sense of responsibility for bad things happening to people he loved, would see that as something he personally had inflicted on her. "Even if I did get pregnant, and even if something happened, none of that would be your fault," she said firmly. "It takes two to tango, remember?"

"I guess," he said morosely, and she knew he remained unconvinced.

"Hey. C'mere." She drew him back to the pillows with her. She settled him against her, cradling his head against her chest and wrapping her arms around him. "What happened to looking on the bright side?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his arms around her. "You're right. I shouldn't be ruining our morning together with my paranoia." But he didn't loosen his hold on her.

She stroked the curls at the back of his neck. "I'm so grateful for our life together," she murmured. "No matter what happens. I wouldn't trade a second of it. I need you to know that."

"I know that. I do." He buried his face in her chest. "I feel the same way."

"Well, that's lucky, isn't it?" she said lightly, eliciting a choked laugh from him.

She managed to soothe him enough to lull him into sleep, and eventually she dropped off as well. They slept, curled up together as close as it was possible for two bodies to be.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: One more chapter to go after this! More of an epilogue, really. Thanks so much to everyone who has read/reviewed the story. Your feedback is treasured more than you know.

xxxxx

Henry ran to her when she came to pick him up, his face lit up. Lisbon beamed back at him. She picked him up and swung him around in a circle when he reached her, making him wrinkle his nose and laugh in delight.

She took him to the park. They feasted on a picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples, and goldfish, courtesy of Jane and his excellent picnic packing skills. Afterwards, they chased each other around the playground until they got tired, then collapsed on an old blanket under a huge oak tree. In the shade of the tree, Lisbon read to her son from a stack of children's books they'd checked out on their last trip to the library.

Jane met them at the park. "Well, well," he said, gazing down at them when he came upon them and observing the stack of books in the 'finished' pile. "I do believe another trip to the library is in order. What do you say, my son? Shall we do as men do and get ourselves to the library in time for afternoon story hour?"

Henry communicated his approval of the notion.

Jane picked him up and hoisted him onto his shoulders. Lisbon watched with hooded eyes as his t-shirt rode up with the motion, exposing a thin sliver of his belly for a moment until his t-shirt settled back in place. She'd always liked Jane of the three piece suits, but she had to admit Jane in a t-shirt and jeans was quite a sight to behold. It was one she thought she'd never be fully used to, no matter how often she found him covered in mashed banana, snot, or spit up, ruefully acknowledging that though they might diminish his sartorial elegance, jeans and a t-shirt were infinitely more practical when subjected to such abuses on a daily basis.

Henry gripped his father's curls and bounced a little on his shoulders. Jane winced. "Careful, young man, or your dear old dad might lose his hair before his time."

"Yeah, right," Lisbon said, standing. Jane's hair was like one of the elements, timeless and unchanging. He'd probably be recruited for shampoo ads when they were in the old folks' home.

Henry looked down at her, a question in his eyes.

Lisbon patted Henry's knee. "Go on with your dad," she told him. "I'm going to go pick up your sister from school."

Henry looked disappointed, but he didn't make a fuss. He just pulled up on Jane's curls as though they were reins, kicking his legs as though urging him along like an unruly pony.

"Oh, is that how it's going to be?" Jane said in mock exasperation. "All right, then. You asked for it." With a wink to Lisbon, he took the cloth bag of books she handed him, and then set off in an ungainly gallop, attracting much interest from the other children on the nearby playground, not to mention the other mommies ranged about the place who apparently had a similar appreciation for Jane's particular combination of jeans, t-shirt, and shampoo-ad worthy hair.

Lisbon shook her head and folded up the blanket, then headed back to the car. She had an errand to run before heading to the school.

Xxx

Though Lisbon was early for school pick up, Clara was already waiting impatiently for her by the time she arrived.

Lisbon parked the car and walked over to where Clara stood with her teacher and the rest of her class.

When she saw Lisbon approaching, Clara turned to her teacher. "That's my mommy," she said importantly. "She's a FBI agent."

"Yes, I know," Mrs. Henderson said patiently. "I've met your mommy before, remember?" She greeted Lisbon warmly. "Hello, Teresa."

"Hello," Lisbon said with a smile. "You guys are out early today."

"Clara helped organize the class for pickup today," Mrs. Henderson informed her with a smile. Lisbon interpreted this as an indication that Clara had used her considerable powers of manipulation to bully and cajole the rest of the class into lining up faster than usual. From Mrs. Henderson's perspective, this undoubtedly made a refreshing change from the exercise of Clara's capacity for rabble-rousing or the instigation of any particular mischief that could similarly derail the teachers' efforts to corral twenty five-year-olds into an activity like getting ready to leave. With Clara, it was difficult to predict in which direction she might choose to tilt the scale on any given day.

"That was nice of her," Lisbon said, stroking Clara's messy braid with affection. Maybe some positive reinforcement would help keep the scale tilted in the right direction.

"I'm very nice," Clara agreed.

Mrs. Henderson's eyes twinkled. "I think Clara had a special motivation to be extra helpful today. She told us all about how you took the day off so you could spend the day together. She didn't want to be late and miss any of your special time together."

"Me, neither," Lisbon said with a smile, squeezing Clara's shoulder.

"I won't keep you, then," said Mrs. Henderson. She addressed Clara. "I hope you have a good time with your mommy today, Clara."

"Thank you, Mrs. H," Clara said politely. She sneaked a glance at Lisbon to make sure she was witnessing this evidence of good behavior. She knew her mother took manners very seriously.

Lisbon decided they had better quit while they were ahead. "Yes, thank you, Mrs. Henderson. It was good to see you."

She spotted the assistant teacher lurking behind the rest of the class as they took their leave. Oh, hell, the woman was still avoiding her. Lisbon tried sending her a friendly smile, but the woman only cringed and tried to slouch out of sight. She seemed to be under the impression that if she only got enough five-year-olds between them, the fact that she was twice as tall as any of her students would become irrelevant and Lisbon would no longer be able to see her. Lisbon wondered if she should ask Jane to hypnotize the teacher into forgetting about the whole 'five-year-old as human lie detector' incident so she could get through one interaction with the woman without feeling horribly awkward. Hm. Food for thought.

Xxx

She took Clara back to the cabin.

"I thought we were going somewhere special," Clara said, disappointed, when they got back to the house. She got out of the car and pouted. "I thought this was our special time."

"It is," Lisbon said, correctly interpreting the pout as an indication that Clara thought their mother-daughter time was likely to be threatened by her father and brother if they spent the afternoon at home. "Your dad took Henry to the library, and then Henry has his class later this afternoon, remember? It's just you and me, kid."

Clara brightened. "Okay."

Lisbon put her hand on Clara's shoulder. "Come on. Let's get you a snack."

Lisbon gave Clara an apple juice and a box of animal crackers. This had been Clara's favorite snack ever since they'd gone to the carnival the last time Pete and Sam had passed through Texas.

Lisbon sat down next to her. "Do you feel tired?" she asked, remembering Clara's night of interrupted sleep.

Clara shook her head vehemently. "No."

Lisbon looked at her closely. "You sure?"

"I'm not tired," Clara said mulishly. Lisbon realized that even if she was, she wasn't about to admit it. She was determined not to sacrifice a single moment of their special time for the trifling purpose of getting some much-needed sleep.

"Okay," Lisbon said gently. Tomorrow was Saturday, after all. She could catch up on her sleep then, if needed.

"So," Clara said expectantly. "What should we do next?"

"I have an idea," Lisbon said. "But I want to talk to you about it first."

Clara destroyed a giraffe. "What kind of idea?"

"I've been worried about the nightmares you've been having," Lisbon said honestly. "The idea of you being too scared to sleep at night makes me feel upset. I've given it a lot of thought, trying to figure out how I can make you feel safe. And you want to know something?"

"What?"

Lisbon lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I don't think those bad dreams are really about Red John."

Clara looked at her, wide-eyed. "They aren't?"

Lisbon shook her head. "I think they're about the idea of bad guys in general. Your brain is telling you they're about Red John because Red John is the biggest, scariest bad guy it's ever heard of."

Clara's brow crinkled in confusion. "It is?"

"Yeah. And that makes sense. Red John was the scariest bad guy I ever had to face. I used to have bad dreams about him, too."

Clara's eyes were saucers. "You did?"

"Yeah. But the thing is, he's gone now. He can't hurt anyone else ever again." Lisbon touched her arm. "I promise you that."

Clara looked down. "But I'm still scared when I go to sleep at night."

"That's fair. There are a lot of other bad guys out there." Lisbon had struggled with this, more than she could ever express to Clara. As much as she wanted to tell her child there was nothing to be frightened of, that she and Jane would keep her safe no matter what, she knew that promise wasn't entirely within her power to keep. She thought about Haibach coming after her team years after they'd thought any lingering dangers from their old life in California were long since buried. Of Joe Keller entering this very cabin with a gun on her wedding day. The truth was, it was not outside the realm of possibility that someone from their past or someone from one of her active cases could go after her family, now or in the future. She didn't want Clara to be scared, but she didn't want to paint a rosy picture, either. She wanted her to be prepared. Above all, she wanted her to be safe.

She was silent for a long moment. "You know how your daddy teaches you new words?" she asked at last.

Clara eyed her warily. "Yeah."

"Well, did he ever teach you about the word 'tactics?'"

Clara looked at her intently. "No. What's that?"

"Tactics are like… a plan."

Clara perked up. "I like plans."

"I know you do," Lisbon said wryly. "Anyway, tactics are kind of like a plan to get the better of people who want something that you don't want."

"Okay…" Clara said, not quite following.

"So I think we should work on some tactics to help you feel safe."

"All right," Clara said dubiously.

"You feel unsafe because the bad guys scare you, right?"

"Right," Clara said. "I'm scared that one could come here and hurt me or take me away."

"Okay. Let's think about what kind of tactics could help you in that situation. If a bad guy ever came to the house, what could you do to stay safe?"

"I could shoot him dead with a gun," Clara said with certainty.

Lisbon shook her head. Turning to guns as a solution was the last thing she wanted her five-year-old to be thinking about. "No good. What if he got it away from you?"

Clara frowned. "I'd kick him in the leg."

"Kicking someone with a gun isn't a good idea. They might get mad and the gun could go off. Besides, you're small. It might not hurt him that much if you kicked him in the leg."

"I'm strong," Clara said stubbornly.

"I know you are, kid. But this is the whole point of tactics. You have to recognize the advantages the other person has. You have to think about the advantages that you have that they don't have."

"Like what?"

"A bad guy is likely to be bigger than you," Lisbon said. "And he or she might have a weapon. So if you come across a bad guy, confronting him in a physical fight is playing to his advantage, not yours. You need to develop tactics that play to your advantage."

"But I don't have 'vantages," Clara said, frowning.

"Of course you do," Lisbon said. She tapped Clara on the temple. "You're smart. I bet you're smarter than a lot of bad guys. That's going to be your biggest advantage."

"Even if they're grownups?"

"Yes. Even then. Grownups tend to underestimate little kids, so you can use that to your advantage as well."

"Cool," Clara said, awed.

"You know what else?"

"What?" Clara said eagerly.

"Sometimes being small can be an advantage, too."

Clara frowned. "How?"

"You tell me. Can you think of any circumstance when being small is useful?"

Clara thought. "In 'Hide and Seek?'"

"Exactly," Lisbon said approvingly. "When you're small, sometimes running away or hiding until help can come is the best tactic."

"I could hide," Clara said excitedly. "If a bad guy comes, I can find a good spot to hide."

"That's right. And if one comes here, you'll also have home-court advantage."

"What's that?"

"It means you know this place better than any bad guy ever will," Lisbon explained. "I bet you know lots of secret spots that a bad guy wouldn't be able to find."

"Yeah!" Clara said with enthusiasm.

"So what do you say?" Lisbon said. "Want to practice some of your tactics with me?"

Clara was more than willing.

Xxx

Clara already knew about dialing 911 in an emergency, but Lisbon went over it with her again, making her practice reciting their address into the phone and coaching her through answering a series of question any emergency dispatcher was likely to ask. They timed how long it would take Clara to grab the phone from the kitchen and run to the master bedroom, the room in the house with the sturdiest door and most effective lock. She showed Clara how to lock herself inside and put a chair under the doorknob in case someone broke in. If Clara could get to the phone in time, she was to grab the phone and call 911 from under the bed. But if she calculated she couldn't get to the phone in time, the priority was to get away. She should run and hide wherever she could.

They spent a good long while scouting potential hiding spots. Clara found a number of clever spots she could fit into that Lisbon had to admit she wouldn't have thought to try. When they'd exhausted the possible hiding spots in the little cabin, they ventured outside.

"Okay," Lisbon said, surveying the property from the porch. "Where else can you think of around here that might be a good place to hide?"

"The Airstream?" Clara suggested.

Lisbon smiled. "Good idea."

The Airstream was parked in an unused paddock several hundred yards away from the main house, accessible from a footpath off the main trail through the woods behind the house. They occasionally took it down to the coast for family vacations, and Clara and Henry often used the Airstream to play house, so Clara knew the path.

Inside the Airstream, Clara managed to tuck herself inside a drawer under the bed, and climbed with disturbing alacrity into an overhead compartment before Lisbon could move to spot her. Together, they opened the fold out table and worked out a way to close it partially so it would conceal her without looking odd or out of place.

Clara squeezed herself into one of the cupboards, too, but she popped out again before Lisbon could scrutinize the effectiveness of the hiding spot from an outside perspective.

"Something wrong?" Lisbon asked, startled, when Clara burst out of the cabinet.

"That spot is no good," Clara declared.

"Really?" Lisbon said, bending to take a closer look. "I didn't get a chance to look closely, but it seemed ok to me."

Clara shook her head. "It's too small."

"It looked like you fit inside it just fine," Lisbon said, straightening.

"I could fit in it just me," Clara said. "But it's too small for me and Henry both."

Lisbon frowned. "For both of you?"

Clara looked at her with a 'duh' kind of expression. "If I need to hide, I hafta find a spot that can hide me and Henry both so I can protect him. Uncle Tommy says that's what big sisters do."

A lump rose in Lisbon's throat. She couldn't answer. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around her daughter, squeezing her tight. "I'm so proud of you," Lisbon said into her ear. "You know that, right?"

"You are?" Clara said into her shoulder, her arms around Lisbon's neck squeezing almost as tight.

"Of course I am," Lisbon whispered. She rocked Clara back and forth. "Of course I am."

When Lisbon had regained control of herself again, she loosened her hold on Clara and leaned back to look her in the eye. "Look," she said. "I love that you want to protect your brother, and I hope you keep that feeling as you get older. But you're not responsible for keeping him safe, okay? That's my job, and Daddy's. If something happened to any of us, I never want you to feel like it was your fault, you got that?"

"Okay," Clara said in a small voice.

Lisbon hugged her again. "Come on. Let's go outside."

They assessed the woods around the Airstream and the house and identified several more potential hiding spots.

"Look, Mommy," Clara said, pointing to a stand of trees Lisbon recognized as a favorite spot for building forts. "The hollow tree would be a good place to hide, too."

Lisbon was impressed. "That's good, Bluebell. I don't think a bad guy would think to look for you here. It's not on the main path, so they wouldn't have any reason to come this way. Good work."

They went and examined the hollow tree.

"I think you could fit in it, too, Mommy," Clara observed.

"Let's try it out, shall we?" Lisbon said.

They climbed inside the hollow tree. It was a perfect hiding spot. Unremarkable enough that a stranger wouldn't notice it, but distinct enough that she or Jane would easily be able to find it if the worst happened and their children needed to hide for some reason. They curled up inside of it.

"I think this is a good spot to stash some emergency supplies," Lisbon remarked, looking up into the hollowed out center of the tree overhead. She pulled out one of two burner phones she'd picked up from RadioShack earlier from her back pocket and handed it to Clara.

"I get a cell phone?" Clara said excitedly.

Lisbon shook her head. "This is just for an emergency. I think we should hide it here. Then if a bad guy comes, you can hide out here and call 911."

Clara looked impressed. "Good idea."

Lisbon showed her how to power it on and made her practice dialing her number, Jane's number, Cho's, and Wiley's until she was satisfied she could dial them all from memory. She hadn't forgotten the time Jane had solved a case by demonstrating how helpless people were when they didn't have any phone numbers memorized. Once Clara had proven her capacity for memorization, they powered the phone off and Clara helped Lisbon seal it inside two Ziploc bags, along with an extra battery. Together, they dug a hole in the soft earth with a stick and buried the phone so it would be somewhat protected from the elements.

Lisbon held up the second phone. "I've got one more. Where should we hide this one?"

Clara's face lit up. "The Kissing Log!"

This was the name Clara used to refer to the favorite family picnic spot. The one where Jane and Lisbon had gotten engaged, and where Lisbon had told Jane she was pregnant with Clara in the first place.

"Okay," Lisbon agreed. She crawled out of the hollow tree and helped Clara climb out after her. "Shall we?"

They walked back down the path and around the pond, then found an appropriate spot near the Kissing Log and hid the second phone there.

After scouting out a few more potential hiding spots, they sat down on the Kissing Log and took a break. Looking out over the pond, Lisbon asked, "Did I ever tell you why your daddy and I call you Bluebell?"

Clara shook her head.

"When you were about seven months old, we had a picnic out here. It was a beautiful day. It was springtime, and the ground was covered in bluebells, especially over here. We were all on a picnic blanket, and your dad had propped up this old umbrella to protect you from the sun." Lisbon smiled, remembering. "You were kicking your feet and laughing and Daddy and I both thought playing with you on this beautiful day was pretty much the most fun thing ever. But it was warm and we got sleepy, and we fell asleep in the sun."

"Okay," Clara said, not finding the story terribly interesting so far, but since she was ostensibly the star, willing to give it a chance.

Lisbon took a deep breath. "When we woke up, you weren't on the blanket with us anymore."

"Where'd I go?" Clara asked curiously.

"We didn't know. We couldn't find you. We were terrified." It had been the most terrifying five minutes of her life to that point, in fact.

"What did you do?"

"We looked all over for you. And eventually, your dad found you in this huge patch of bluebells, tall enough to go past my knee. You'd gotten bored watching us sleep, I guess, and had decided to teach yourself to crawl. That was the first time you ever crawled, you see, so your daddy and I hadn't thought to worry that you might move away from us while we were sleeping. You did, though. You rolled over on the blanket and took off into the woods, ready to go exploring. And you found this huge patch of bluebells and started to play with the flowers, picking them and throwing them back on the ground. Your daddy saw all the flowers on the ground and said you must have been having a fine old time without us. But then you got sleepy, too, and you fell asleep there, right in the middle of all those flowers."

"Then what happened?" Clara asked with interest.

"Your daddy picked you up, and we both cried a little, because we were so relieved."

"You cried?" Clara asked, eyes wide.

"Yes. We stood there, all three of us in the middle of that patch of bluebells, your daddy holding you and me touching your hand and then your foot and then your tummy, just needing to reassure myself that you were really okay, that nothing bad had happened to you. And your dad turned to me and asked me if I knew what bluebells stood for. Of course I didn't, because who knows that stuff, besides your dad? He told me that among other things, bluebells symbolized gratitude and everlasting love. And we started calling you Bluebell because we wanted to have a way of showing how grateful we are to have you, every day."

Clara was quiet for a moment. "That's a nice story," she said at last.

Lisbon kissed the top of her head and smoothed back her messy braid. "I'm just glad it had a happy ending," she said, resting her cheek on the top of Clara's head and closing her eyes. She sent a brief prayer of thanks to God for keeping Clara safe, then and now, and asked God to continue to protect her in good stead in the years to come.

She lifted her head and turned Clara to face her. "Listen. You know how Daddy taught you how to build your memory palace?"

"Yeah."

"I have something I want you to remember, but it's not a fact or a word or an idea. I don't think the memory palace is the right place to keep it."

"Where should I keep it?" Clara asked, intrigued.

Lisbon placed her hand on Clara's thin chest, just over her heart. "Right here. What I want you to remember is a feeling, so it seems appropriate that you keep it in your heart, don't you think?"

"Okay," Clara said. "I won't put it in the memory palace. I'll keep it in my memory heart."

Lisbon smiled. "Perfect."

"So what is it?" Clara said expectantly.

Lisbon kept her hand over her heart. "You've done a really good job with the tactics today, and I'm very proud of how brave you've been. But I want you to know that if anyone or anything ever threatens your or your brother, I will fight with my last breath to protect you. I need you to know that. No matter what happens in the future, I want you to remember how much I love you. I want you to know that I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love anything in the whole world. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Do you feel it, in your heart?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Hold it there. Never forget that."

"I won't." Clara reached out and put her own tiny hand on Lisbon's chest, mimicking her gesture. "I love you, too, Mommy."

Lisbon smiled, her eyes a little watery. She picked up Clara's hand and kissed the palm. "I'm so grateful to have you in my life. Every day." She drew Clara in for another hug, holding her close.

Clara tolerated this for a moment, then fidgeted. "Can we practice more tactics now?"

Lisbon laughed. "Sure."

They practiced being extra quiet when hiding so no one would be able to hear them if someone was looking for them. After that, Lisbon showed Clara how to form her fingers into a fist and taught her how to throw a punch. She reminded Clara that getting into a fight with someone bigger than herself was something to be avoided, but she had every intention of teaching her daughter self-defense, so she figured she might as well start teaching her good habits as early as possible. She made a mental note to talk to Jane about signing Clara up for karate next year.

When he came home with Henry, Jane found the two of them practicing army crawls around the back of the house. "What are you doing back here?" he asked, perplexed. Henry, on his hip, wriggled in his arms until Jane put him down and let him join in on the fun.

"Mommy and I are doing tactics," Clara said importantly. By this time, she'd added another word to her vocabulary. She was currently practicing stealth maneuvers.

Lisbon looked up from the ground, covered in dirt and with various forest detritus clinging to her hair. "Hi," she said sheepishly.

Jane looked down at her, amused. "Tactics, huh?"

"Mommy's teaching me how to stay safe from the bad guys, if they come," Clara explained. "So I won't be scared in my sleep anymore."

"That's a good idea," Jane said, his eyes still on Lisbon. "Nobody can teach you how to be strong and brave better than your mommy."

Lisbon stood and brushed leaves and grass clippings from her front. "We talked about how sometimes running and hiding and being very, very quiet is the best way to outmaneuver your enemy."

"And calling 911," Clara reminded her.

"That, too," Lisbon agreed.

"Daddy, want to test me on phone numbers?" Clara asked.

"Uh, okay. Which ones?"

"I learned your phone number, and Mommy's, and Cho's, and Wiley's."

Jane quizzed her on each one in turn. Lisbon was unsurprised to note that he didn't need to refer to his contacts list to verify that Clara's answers were correct.

When this feat had been properly lauded by her parents, Clara turned to Henry, who had busied himself examining a number of insects crawling around on the underside of a nearby rock. "Come on, Henry," Clara ordered. "I'll show you where the best hiding spots are."

Henry obediently got up and followed where Clara led. The two of them ran around in the trees near the house, discovering and trying out several more potential hiding places.

Lisbon kissed Jane hello. "How was Henry's class?"

Jane shrugged. "Dr. Hussein says there's no physical impediment preventing Henry from talking. When they do comprehension activities where Henry can use non-verbal communication, he's leaps and bounds ahead of other kids his age. Dr. Hussein just can't get him to talk."

"So what's his theory?"

"He says he thinks Henry will start to talk when he feels like he has something to say," Jane said helplessly.

"That's what I've been saying all along," Lisbon said, exasperated.

"Dr. Hussein thinks you're right. He says we should just let him choose to speak in his own time and not pressure him to talk until he's ready."

"I told you so." Lisbon reached up and kissed him on the cheek. "I appreciate how good you've been with him, you know."

"Dr. Hussein's not so bad," Jane said. "I hardly felt any temptation to hypnotize him after that first session."

Lisbon swatted him on the arm. "I meant Henry. I know it's been hard for you, with that big brain of yours, to think about the possibility of your kid having a learning disability. But you've been so wonderful and patient with him."

"He's Henry," Jane said. "He's the sweetest child on the planet. How could anyone be impatient with him?"

"Nonetheless," Lisbon persisted. "I appreciate how you let him be himself."

"Speaking of appreciation…" He pulled a small bouquet of origami bluebells from thin air, complete with paper stems. He presented them to her with a flourish. "These are for you."

Lisbon accepted the paper flowers with wonder. "When the hell did you find time to do this?"

He shrugged. "Since my hypnotism skills weren't needed while Henry was in his class, I had some time on my hands."

Lisbon threaded her fingers through his and squeezed his hand. "Thank you."

Jane removed a twig from her hair and looked at her dirt-smudged face with affection. "This is a good look for you."

"Gee, thanks," Lisbon said dryly.

"Like I said," he said, running his hands through her hair and bringing her face to his. He kissed her sweetly. "Like looking into the sun," he said softly.

Lisbon kissed him back, then took him by the hand again. "Come on. I'll show you all the best hiding spots."

Xxx

They decided to have a picnic dinner at the Kissing Log that night. Clara was keen to show Henry the rest of her hiding spots, and since it was cool, but not cold, Jane and Lisbon agreed it would be a fine evening for a picnic. They trooped outside with a picnic blanket and several Tupperware containers and settled themselves against the Kissing Log. Mr. Tigerlily had elected to stay inside on this occasion, but Samson trotted after them, wagging his tail.

Lisbon leaned against the log and munched on her curry chicken salad, made with extra apples and raisins because Jane knew she liked it that way. She thought about the time Clara had invited Cho along to a family picnic at the Kissing Log. In in his characteristic deadpan expression, Cho had inquired what the Kissing Log was. Clara had blithely informed him that was where Daddy liked to kiss Mommy for dessert. Lisbon had blushed tomato red, but Cho adopted the term without blinking. The name had stuck ever since.

"Henry!" Jane called. "Away from the water, please."

Henry obediently retreated from the edge of the pond, where he had been playing in the mud with a stick. He found a slug to watch and observed it closely as it moved slowly up the side of a tree trunk nearby.

Lisbon finished her sandwich and cuddled closer to Jane. "Today was a good day, wasn't it?" she said in idle contentment.

"Uh-huh," Jane said distractedly. "Clara, what on earth are you doing to the dog?"

"I'm teaching him how to do tactics," Clara said, letting go of a handful of Samson's fur. From where Lisbon sat, it looked like she was trying to shove him inside a hollowed out log lying on the ground a little ways into the trees. Samson, confused by this game, was not proving the most cooperative pupil.

"Ah," Jane said. "You're trying to protect him, too." Lisbon had told him about Clara's determination to select only hiding spots that could contain both her and her brother at the same time.

"Of course," Clara said indignantly. "I'm not going to let the bad guys get Samson."

"I see," Jane said. "Carry on, then."

"Be gentle," Lisbon reminded her.

"I'm very gentle," Clara said, huffily and inaccurately. Samson, who was far more gentle by nature than his mistress, butted her playfully with his head and accidentally knocked her over. She glared up at him. "Samson!" she scolded. "Be gentle."

Jane's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. He turned his head and kissed the top of Lisbon's head to hide his smile. "You're right," he murmured, his voice shaking with mirth. "This has been a very good day."

Lisbon watched Clara with the dog, observing as they each tried to shepherd the other one in their preferred direction, with limited success on both sides. She sighed in resignation. "A puppy, huh?"

Jane grinned.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: This is it, last chapter! Thanks again to everyone for following along. Your support is so valued.

xxxxx

***Three weeks later***

"Snowden!" Clara called. "Come back here."

She was attempting to feed the half-grown puppy they'd brought home from the pound a week ago, but he was far more interested in chewing on Henry's toy truck. Lisbon had at first wondered if her child was making some kind of political statement with her choice of name for the puppy. Later, she learned that Clara had heard the name on the radio and just thought it was pretty.

Kibble spilled all over the floor as Clara turned her head to call to the three-month old spaniel-terrier mix.

Samson ambled over and leisurely started to lap up the spilled kibble, as though determined to adhere to good manners even when technically profiting from the inattention of a rival. Mr. Tigerlily had no such compunctions. He pounced on the spilled dog food and started scarfing it down as though he'd been starving for a week. In fact, he'd already stolen half of Samson's dinner earlier, species-specific food branding be damned.

Lisbon looked up from where she was reading a dinosaur book on the floor with Henry. "Honey, try using the cup instead of pouring from the whole bag."

"Oh, right." Clara let the bag fall to the floor with a thump. She successfully warded off Mr. Tigerlily's efforts to worm his way headfirst into the bag and managed to extract a cup full of the kibble. Samson and Mr. Tigerlily tracked the newly scooped cup of food with their eyes. Clara looked at them warily. "Now what?"

Lisbon got up and scooped up Mr. Tigerlily. He turned over in her arms and batted at the ends of her hair as though this undignified exodus had been his idea all along. "Samson! C'mere, boy." Samson obediently trotted after her. Lisbon shut Samson in the laundry room with his favorite chew toy and deposited Mr. Tigerlily in the master bedroom, where he could resume his favorite activity of shedding on Jane's pillow.

She went back to the living room. Clara, now free of scavengers, approached the puppy with the cup of kibble. Snowden cocked his head in interest for a moment, then returned to mangling Henry's truck.

Clara set the kibble in front of him. "Come on, Snowden," she coaxed. "It's good for you. It has…Vitamin C."

Lisbon rolled her eyes but let the false advertising pass. If Clara focused all her nascent conning abilities into harmless activities such as manipulating their new pet into eating his dinner, she could live with that.

Henry watched the ritual with interest from the other side of the room, but didn't interfere.

"Snowden, it's time for your dinner," Clara said sternly. Impatient, she took the toy away from him and crossed her arms over her chest. "Eat."

Snowden stared at her for a minute, then bent his head and meekly took a bite of the kibble.

"Clara," Jane said from the kitchen. "You gonna clean up that kibble you spilled over here?"

"Yes, Daddy," Clara said sulkily. Grumbling under her breath, she got out the broom. She struggled with it for a moment, as it was nearly twice as tall as she was, but she wrangled it in the end. She managed to sweep up most of the spilled kibble, with Jane surreptitiously cleaning up behind her on the spots she missed.

She dumped the kibble, now bundled together with a fairly significant collection of dog and cat hair, into the garbage, wrinkling her nose. Then she turned to her mother. "Mommy, I did it," she said proudly. "I got it all clean."

"Good girl," Lisbon said approvingly. "Now, wash your hands for me, and you can play with Snowden for a few more minutes before it's time for bed."

"Me, too," Jane decided, pretending to wrestle Clara out of the way to wash his own hands. Not to be outdone, Clara elbowed him out of the way to wash her hands, giggling and flicking soap at Jane. Jane, unperturbed, blew on the soap bubbles floating his way, popping some and sending others spiraling in new directions.

Snowden finished his kibble. When Clara went back to him, he jumped up and dragged Henry's truck over to her. Clara sat down on the floor. She picked up the puppy-slobber covered truck and wound it up, then set it loose in the direction of the kitchen table. Snowden shot after it, puppy toenails skittering on the wood floor. He overshot the mark and missed the truck entirely, sending Clara and Henry into gales of laughter. He recovered and pounced on the truck, picking it up and trotting back over to Clara. He dropped it by her feet, then jumped up and licked her face. They wrestled on the floor together, Clara giggling uncontrollably.

Henry abandoned his book and threw himself in the melee.

Jane let Samson out, then came over to sit on the floor next to Lisbon, draping an arm around her shoulders. The two of them watched Samson join in on the play. Jane had opened the door for Mr. Tigerlily, but he hadn't deigned to rejoin them. Mr. Tigerlily was still assessing the significance of Snowden's appearance in his life. Samson had accepted Snowden into the family with the graciousness befitting his age and dignity. Mr. Tigerlily was still making up his mind.

Xxx

Lisbon woke in the middle of the night. She lay in bed a moment, listening to the silence. Then she got up. She glanced at Jane, sleeping on his stomach with his mouth half-open, Mr. Tigerlily curled up above his head as usual.

She padded down the hall. She checked on Henry. He was sprawled on his back, his mouth half-open just like Jane's, Samson curled up against his side, and the covers kicked down to the end of the bed. She pulled the covers up over them and dropped a kiss to Henry's forehead. Then she went to check on Clara.

Clara was sleeping on her side, one arm around Snowden, who was curled up against her stomach. Clara had started sleeping through the night again soon after the tactics lessons had started. The nightmares seemed to have disappeared entirely around the time Snowden had showed up. Lisbon looked at girl and puppy, curled up together in the moonlight. They made quite the picture. She watched them, tucking the moment away in her memory heart.

She was so long at it that Jane found her there, still watching their daughter with her puppy and feeling grateful for her family's health and safety with every quiet breath.

Jane wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her neck. "Can't sleep?"

She shook her head. "No. Just checking in on them." She turned in his arms and looked at him quizzically. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

Lisbon gestured behind them. "The puppy thing. How did you know she needed that?"

"Easy," Jane said, leaning forward and pecking her on the lips. "Lisbon women are only happy when they have something to take care of."

"Is that so?" Lisbon said, amused.

"Yes," Jane said. He drew back and tugged her away from the doorway. "Come back to bed. I get lonely when you're not there. I need you to take care of me."

"That, I will always do," Lisbon said, following him back to the bedroom.

He paused on the threshold and kissed her again. "Right back at you, my dear."

Lisbon crawled back into bed. The nice, spacious, deliciously cool bed she and her husband had made love in earlier that night. Jane rolled over and cuddled up next to her, spooning her from behind. "I thought you were going to stay on your side for a while so I won't get too hot," Lisbon murmured, wriggling up against him.

"I have no choice but to cuddle," Jane said gravely. "Mr. T is hogging my pillow. You're going to have to share yours with me."

"I'm beginning to think rescuing Mr. T as a kitten was all an elaborate plan to help you get your way in domestic matters," Lisbon remarked. "First you fake an injury to get a make out session in the kitchen, now you claim he's denying you access to your pillow so you've got to share mine."

"Fake?" Jane said indignantly. "I'll have you know that scratch scarred me for days. I carried an unsightly scab for almost a week because of that ungrateful feline."

Lisbon patted his arm. "Don't worry. It didn't affect your looks that much. There are still a couple mirrors in the house that didn't crack when you looked into them."

Jane tightened his arm around her. "Just for that, I'm going to make you cuddle with me the whole rest of the night," he threatened.

Lisbon smiled into her pillow. "Go to sleep, Jane."

Jane huffed into her neck, then nuzzled her hair and sighed in contentment. "Love you," he murmured.

Lisbon closed her eyes. "Love you, too."

The quiet and the stillness enveloped them and their little house. The family slept peacefully through the night.


End file.
